[[quoteright:350:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/rsz_methods_of_rationality_by_zerinity-d4a9rv5_9199.jpg]][[caption-width-right:350:''[[http://zerinity.deviantart.com/art/Methods-of-Rationality-259116881 Methods of Rationality]]'' by Zerenity]]

->''"You turned into a cat! A SMALL cat! You violated Conservation of Energy! That's not just an arbitrary rule, it's implied by the form of the quantum Hamiltonian! Rejecting it destroys unitarity and then you get FTL signaling! And cats are COMPLICATED! A human mind can't just visualize a whole cat's anatomy and, and all the cat biochemistry, and what about the neurology? How can you go on thinking using a cat-sized brain?"''-->-- '''Harry Potter'''

''[[http://hpmor.com/ Harry Potter]] [[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5782108/1/Harry-Potter-and-the-Methods-of-Rationality and the Methods of Rationality]]'' is an on-going ''Literature/HarryPotter'' [[RationalFic rational fanfic]] by Creator/EliezerYudkowsky, AI researcher and decision theorist.

This is an AlternateUniverse story, where [[WhatIf Petunia married a scientist]]. Now Rationalist!Harry enters the wizarding world armed with Enlightenment ideals and the experimental spirit.

It should also be noted that the author is aware of us and has links to ''this page'' on his author's notes for chapter 20.

Recaps of all chapters can be found [[Recap/HarryPotterAndTheMethodsOfRationality here]] (currently under construction).

SPOILER ALERT: Through this article you will find spoilers EVEN if you have read every chapter published by the author, continue at your own peril.

----!!''Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality'' provides examples of the following tropes:

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[[folder: A-E]]* AbusiveParents: Averted. The aversion is {{Lampshaded}}.-->'''Harry''': They, ah, I have to do dishes and wash problems and they don't let me read a lot of books and—-** Discussed when Harry tells Hermione how this trope could have made him more independent.* AcademyOfAdventure: Insane headmaster, obviously evil Potions master, arguably evil Defense master, students fight mock battles, even bullying gets caught up in political machinations.* ActionGirl: Hermione is one of the three generals of the student armies. She's also founded an organization, [[MythologyGag S.P.H.E.W,]] the ''Society for the Promotion of Heroic Equality for Witches'', to help other girls become this.* AdaptiveAbility: A rational combatant adapts to the changing situation. The ones who don't (tends to be Hermione), quickly get beaten.* AdultsAreUseless: Played with. Harry generally respects adults and understands the value of experience, but that doesn't change the fact that many adults will not take anything a child says seriously. This arrogance seriously offends Harry and leads him to drop ''all'' respect for any adults who dismiss what he has to say outright. Making matters worse is that most magical adults have no concept of logic, rationality, or other critical thinking skills. In the end, adults have their uses, but most of them simply aren't as smart as Harry.** Subverted in chapters 12 and 14: [[spoiler:After coming up with two bad plans for dealing with the mysterious message with the help of students, he comes up with plan C of being GenreSavvy enough to just ignore the thing and then plan D of bringing the matter to the teachers' attention and letting them look into it. He then chastises himself for not thinking of that first and goes on to do exactly that, further assuring [=McGonagall=] that if he finds even a hint of the Chamber of Secrets he will back off immediately and inform her so a team of professionals can be sent in.]]** This is also played with in that, while Harry is smart, he also thinks that because he is smart, he is also right about many things, and thus doesn't heed the advice of, doesn't seek the advice of, or otherwise behaves badly in situations where more deference to more experienced wizards would serve him well - or at least make people like him more. This comes back to bite him later on, when he realizes that he is in over his head, and because he was thinking of himself as being equal to adults, got himself into trouble that he cannot easily extricate himself from, requiring extreme GambitRoulette or simply taking his lumps.** It takes a student vigilante group fighting open battles in the halls to get the school to finally crack down on Hogwarts' chronic bullying problem. Previously, their hallway monitoring solution was one sadist with no magic powers.* AffablyEvil: Randolph Lee.* AnAesop: [[OncePerEpisode At least one in most chapters.]]* AintTooProudToBeg: Quirrell feels this is an important quality to instill in Harry.* AlienGeometries: Hogwarts has corridors which can change when you aren't looking. The number of stairs you climb has only a passing correlation to your actual elevation when you look out the window. At least one corridor is tiled in pentagons (whch, if you're talking about regular pentagons, is mathematically impossible).* AllThereInTheManual: Arguably. The fact that [[spoiler:Voldemort turned the Pioneer plaque into a Horcrux]] is heavily implied, but by no means confirmed, in the text. It ''is'' explicitly stated in the author notes.* AlternativeCharacterInterpretation: In-universe example: Draco's internal thoughts make references to stories and plays which are obviously versions of ''Manga/DeathNote'', ''WesternAnimation/{{Gargoyles}}'', and ''WesternAnimation/ThunderCats'', with the heroes portrayed as villains and vice versa. * AlwaysSomeoneBetter: Harry realizes Hermione's ability to rapidly assimilate information and do academic work better, as well as having unwavering morality is superior to him. Hermione, in contrast, recognizes that Harry is [[TheChessmaster a Chessmaster]] that she frankly cannot outplot no matter what she tries, and that he's far less naive than her. Both of them are jealous of the other's better points.%%* AndThenJohnWasAZombie: Per Word of God on the discussion page, not a deliberate reference, so please don't add it here or under ShoutOut.* AnachronicOrder: Chapters 24-26. Chapters 24 and 25 proceed in numbered acts 3, 2, 1, 5, 6, and 4; act 6 takes place in the middle of chapter 26.* {{Angrish}}: Harry is physically and mentally incapable of speaking after seeing a Quibbler headline proclaiming that he had [[MisterSeahorse gotten Malfoy pregnant]].* AntiHero: Harry tries to be the savior, but ends up doing some not-so-heroic things. Dumbledore has his doubts about whether he himself is a hero or a villain.* AntiMagic: Azkaban's force field. Quirrell seems to have some of it, too.* AntiVillain: Snape, Quirrell, Lucius.* AnyoneCanDie: ''Anyone''.* AppealToRidicule: Discussed in chapter 101.* ArbitrarySkepticism:** When Harry claims that he managed to create a plothole in reality in chapter 17 and gets called out by Dean Thomas, Harry points out that they're in the middle of a ''broomstick lesson'' and tells him to shut up.** Harry himself possesses rather arbitrary skepticism regarding souls and the afterlife. He does ask for evidence, but when it is not immediately available he keeps taking for granted that they do not exist. Explained later by him getting his hopes up when he first met a ghost, then emotionally crashing when he found out they were only reflections and not true life after death, or at least that is what his Muggleborn eleven-year-old friend who reads a lot of books told him.* ArmorPiercingQuestion: The Sorting Hat tries to deliver one to Harry: "What happens if you fail?" But even though it goes on to ''spell out the answer'', Harry still refuses to hear it.* ArsonMurderAndJaywalking: Harry reels from the current understanding of physics being completely undermined by {{Animorphism}}, but takes a moment to disdainfully lampshade the CanisLatinicus of ''Wingardium Leviosa''.* ArsonMurderAndLifesaving: The Weasley twins think they are going to be expelled after [[spoiler: disobeying orders and helping Harry try and save Hermione.]] In fact they are commended for their actions.* AscendedExtra: Some characters with only background roles in the original series have much more fleshed out parts, most notably Blaise Zabini.** All members of S.P.H.E.W. have much more fleshed out motivations than in the original series.** Amelia Bones is probably the most significant adult example.* AskAStupidQuestion:** "Seriously, who ''reads'' this stuff?" "You."** When told that [[Literature/HarryPotterAndTheHalfBloodPrince a sixth-year Gryffindor had deliberately cast a Dark curse on a sixth-year Slytherin - a curse he knew nothing about except that it was "for enemies"]] - Harry is unable to stop himself from asking "Are you ''serious''?" ** When [[spoiler: Bellatrix Black]] incredulously says "I'm... alive...?", Harry is tempted to say "no" just to see the reaction.* {{Atlantis}}: Draco makes what might just be a metaphoric reference to the "blood of Atlantis," but eventually Harry starts to think magic might actually have come from Atlantis or somewhere like it. Later it is mentioned that something wiped Atlantis from the time stream.* AuthorTract: [[invoked]]** Most of Harry's extended conversations with [[spoiler: Dumbledore]]. Especially notable is the scene where [[spoiler: Harry is speaking to Draco about his Patronus and explaining how to cast one]]. The author himself declares the work to be an author tract unabashedly.--->'''Less Wrong:''' As with self-inserts and harem fics, the reason Author Tracts have a bad reputation is just that most people don't even try to do them correctly, develop any skill at doing them, or try to compensate for the literarily obvious problems (e.g. skewing of power balance / loss of driving story conflict, in all three cases) that would otherwise develop. Self-inserts can be done well if you amp up the villains to where they can kick hell out of the SI (e.g. Hybrid Theory), harem fics can be done well if you preserve romantic conflicts throughout (hard to think of a strong example, maybe Negima, but the romantic conflicts don't present enough of a story challenge compared to e.g. the Mage of the Beginning) and Author Tracts can be done well if you strengthen the argumentative power of the side you disagree with as much as possible.** It gets better, but the first few chapters amounts to the author pointing to every single physical inconsistency in the Harry Potter universe and screaming "THAT SHOULD NOT WORK!"** The "Roles" arc is pretty heavy-handed about doing what's necessary, not just what's reasonable. [[spoiler: [=McGonnagal=]'s focus on authority and reasonableness stops students breaking rules even when it's the right thing to do, possibly costing a student their life and she has a breakdown as a result, recanting publicly.]]* AwesomeButImpractical:** The prose and Hermione and Harry's reaction implies the Light Saber (Lucis Gladius!) spell is this. It allows the user to play TennisBoss with magic spells but has an obscenely long and complicated cast sequence, takes a huge amount of energy to maintain, and requires distance closing -- and there may not even be a version that can do "real" physical damage. Justification: It's very practical ''for what it was intended to do'' -- which is to let members of very rich, very powerful families have honor duels without being interfered with by outsiders or risking actual injury. It does, by implication, have a version that does lethal damage -- Hermione says that the version that Neville and Daphne cast during the fight is "cast for stun", and it's used for duels, which in a pseudo-medieval society like [=MoR!Magical=]-Britain are likely to be SeriousBusiness. It's certainly a one-on-one dueling spell, though, not a melee combat spell (the useful aspects of playing TennisBoss are entirely subsumed by the shield spells that [[spoiler:the Auror used in Azkaban]]).** Hermione in a desperate act had her army fly her into the air so she could try to use [[spoiler:Stupefy to get through Harry's armor]]. She is able to cast the spell. Harry steps out of the way and Hermione crashes into a wall. Quirrell later berates her for it.* BadassArmy: The armies, but the Chaos Legion stands out the most. By Chapter 67, they devolve into evil laughter and are capable of curb-stomping the other armies.* BadassBoast: "I make you this one offer," said the Boy-Who-Lived. "I never learn that you've been interfering with me or any of mine. And you never find out why [[spoiler:the unkillable soul-eating monster]] is scared of me. Now sit down and shut up."** The girls of SPHEW: "We'll come for the darkness, and make it face us, and teach it to be afraid."** The Auxiliary Protective Special Committee: [[spoiler:"The enemy is attacking Hogwarts students, and Hogwarts is going to ''fight back''."]]* BadassFingersnap: Most of the students in Hogwarts think that Harry can do anything by snapping his fingers.* BagOfHolding: Harry's trunk and mokeskin bag both qualify. (Harry even explicitly [[GenreSavvy thinks]] of the latter as his BagOfHolding.)* BathroomStallOfOverheardInsults: Hermione overhears girls talking about her in the shower. They're not really insulting, but it causes Hermione to realize that she's becoming nothing but a side character for the extravagant life of Harry Potter.* BeatThemAtTheirOwnGame:** Draco is getting better at using rationality during battles. During the Taboo Tradeoffs battle, his response to Harry's stratagem enabled Dragon Army to win. To be fair, he had the help of one of Harry's former generals.** Lucius Malfoy plays a game of political influence and psychological manipulation. Dumbledore plays the opposing side and keeps Malfoy in check. Harry tends to wreck the board by being far from subtle. [[spoiler: By the end of the Roles arc Harry has carved out a third faction by allying with the less fanatical sub-factions of both sides, including Malfoy himself. This let him force security reforms on Hogwarts through the Board of Governors.]]* BeneathTheMask:** Behind ObfuscatingInsanity, Dumbledore is very aware of the consequences of his decisions to win the next war.** Harry is worried about his dark side, even though it is very useful.** Maintaining the mask and hiding their agenda until too late is the mark of a Slytherin.* BeingGoodSucks** Dumbledore understands that some people are destined to become heroes no matter what, but it's nonetheless a fate that he wouldn't wish on anyone due to the ordeals involved. Though he's resigned to Harry Potter's fate, he tries to discourage Hermione from becoming a heroine for this reason. [[spoiler:Subverted in that he was only saying that to get her ''to'' be a hero.]] Quote:--->[[spoiler:"My dear," said the old wizard, "after you have dealt with your thirtieth hero or so, you will realize that they react quite predictably to certain things; such as being told that they are too young, or that they are not destined to be heroes, or that being a hero is unpleasant; and if you truly wish to be sure you should tell them all three. Although," with a brief sigh, "it does not do to be too blatant, or your Deputy Headmistress might catch you."]]** Really driven home with Harry's talk about heroic responsibility in chapter 75.--->'''Harry:''' It means that whatever happens, no matter what, it's always your fault. [...] Following the school rules isn't an excuse, someone else being in charge isn't an excuse, even trying your best isn't an excuse. There just aren't any excuses, you've got to ''get the job done no matter what.''** And later:--->'''Gryffindor's Autobiography:''' No rescuer hath the rescuer. No Lord hath the champion, no mother and no father, only nothingness above.** Dumbledore's hidden room, unlocked by the passphrases "''phoenix's price''" and "''phoenix's fate''": [[spoiler:A room of broken wands and pictures, each of them belonging to someone who died as a result of Dumbledore's actions, directly or not. It is essentially his room of shame, despite Harry INSISTING those sacrifices were worth it.]]* BerserkButton: Don't imply Harry's adoptive parents are abusive.* BeyondTheImpossible: Harry does things no one in the wizarding world believes can be done, such as partial transfiguration and [[spoiler:destroying Dementors. In canon, the best one could hope for is driving them away.]]* BewareTheNiceOnes: Chapter 30. [[spoiler: Rationalist!Harry (with a secret dark side) and Draco (raised by a flawless instrument of death to be his successor) are fighting Hermione, whose army is named the Sunshine Army and whose badge is a smiley face. One guess who wins.]]** And again in Chapter 78:--->[A]lthough, Draco was beginning to realize, when he and Harry and Professor Quirrell had dismissed Miss Granger as having as much intent to kill as a bowl of wet grapes, ''they'd never seen her angry''.* BigBad: Depending on their political orientation, people think either Lucius Malfoy or Dumbledore is this. However, Dumbledore plays the game as if Voldemort is still the BigBad.* BigNo: Early in the story, based on the Quibbler headline about how Harry gets Malfoy pregnant, the author got several e-mails asking if Luna was a seer, and if the story was going to turn into an HPDM bottom!Malfoy mpreg fic. The author regretted that fanfiction.net did not allow a larger font with which to say '''NO.'''* BlackAndGrayMorality: According to Draco, many Death Eaters knew Voldemort was evil but joined him anyway because they thought Dumbledore was [[AlternateCharacterInterpretation worse]].* BlackAndWhiteMorality: Hermione is very definite about what Good and Bad is.* {{Blackmail}}** Harry uses this to get Snape taken down a peg, while the Slytherin students suspect it's how Snape [[UltimateJobSecurity keeps his job]].** Also, Draco figures the [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking details of Harry's first date]] will make good blackmail fodder someday.* BlackWidow: Blaise Zabini mentions that his mother might be one. To be fair, that's practically canon.* BloodKnight: Neville takes to this readily. Originally it is because he wants to become the cool Neville that exists only in his head. Later, he views it as training for fighting Bellatrix Black. He wields the Charm of the Most Ancient Blade on multiple occasions and overcomes his fear of broomsticks, though he hesitates (fatally, within-game) after kicking fellow Hufflepuff Hannah in the stomach.* BluffTheImpostor: Chapter 79, in which [[spoiler: Professor Quirrell]] appears to have fallen for it.** Subverted in chapter 69 with Quirrell, probably so people won't be suspicious that he needs to take a few days off to recover.* BoringButPractical: The Killing Curse and Apparition according to Professor Quirrell (except against adult wizards).-->'''Quirrell:''' The Killing Curse is unblockable, unstoppable, and works every single time on anything with a brain. If, as an adult wizard, you find yourself incapable of using the Killing Curse, then you can simply Apparate away!* BoxingLessonsForSuperman:-->"Most wizards," Professor Quirrell said, "do not bother much with what a Muggle would term martial arts. Is not a wand stronger than a fist? This attitude is stupid. Wands are held in fists."* BrainwashedAndCrazy: ** In Chapter 51 and Chapter 52, Quirrell tells Harry that [[spoiler:Bellatrix Black]] only served Voldemort because she ended up this way after being {{Mind Rape}}d (and also raped in the normal sense, as Voldemort let the Lestrange brothers have their way with her). In chapter 108, a character claims that she was already crazy before Voldemort got to her, though.** Chapter 104 reveals that [[spoiler: Professor Sprout]] had been serving as Voldemort's (presumably brainwashed) patsy.* BrassBalls: Harry's first interaction with Snape. Complete with increasing gasps and lapses in breathing from the other students, all the way up to Neville diving under a desk when Harry CrossesTheLineTwice.* BrickJoke: Quidditch without the GoldenSnitch.** Quidditch scores being added to the House Cup total. The same event serves as payoff for both.* BullyHunter: SPHEW, Hermione's little AmazonBrigade. It spirals out of control ''very'' quickly, and ends with sacrificing the Outer God, Yog-Sothoth, in order to summon [[spoiler:Harry Potter]]. Okay, ''probably'' not the sacrifice part.* CallBack** Scandalous continuity.--->'''Chapter 17:''' Professor Blake was caught in a closet with no fewer than three fifth-year Slytherins last February...\\'''Chapter 75:''' Arty Grey, the seventh-year who was leading in their competition by three witches and a Defense Professor...** Also:--->'''Chapter 73:''' "I think our Sunshine General has him pretty well sewn up by now -- you'd have better luck convincing Hermione that the three of you should have one of those, you know, arrangements..."\\'''Chapter 75:''' "Do the three of you have one of those, you know, arrangements?"** In reference to the page quote (when Professor [=McGonagall=] turns into a cat in Chapter 2):--->'''Chapter 14:''' "You’re having another ‘you turned into a cat’ moment, aren’t you, Mr. Potter. You probably don’t want to hear this, but it’s quite endearingly cute."\\'''Chapter 81:''' Harry turned his head back to look at Lord Malfoy, who looked like he’d seen a cat turn into a person and start eating other cats.** Announcement at Dinnertime:---> '''Chapter 15:''' "My, I wonder how long it will take before Miss Granger does something deserving of a dinnertime announcement? I look forward to seeing it, whatever it may be."\\'''Chapter 93:''' When Professor [=McGonagall=] makes an announcement about Hermione at dinnertime [[spoiler:it is to announce Hermione's demise]].** People will remind Harry about sharpening Hufflepuff bones into weapons.** In chapter 89, the Sword of Gryffindor is summoned, and the blade has been inscribed with "nihil supernum" ("nothingness above"), a portion of Godric Gryffindor's (very short) autobiography.* CallingYourAttacks** Neville, in his CrazyAwesome {{Badass}} mode. Since his attacks require allies to buff him, it's [[JustifiedTrope justified]].** And much of the rest of the series, too, since (as in the original) much of magic requires you to say the right magic words.* {{Calvinball}}: The Aurors on duty at Azkaban are playing Dragon Poker, from the MythAdventures universe -- although they've added Dementor-related rules.* CanonIllustrations: Dinosaurusgede's FanArt ([[RecursiveFanfiction Recursive Fan Art]]?) seems to have this status.* CatharticScream: Alluded to in one chapter, where the cast listing states that [=McGonagall=], in addition to [[INeedAFreakingDrink needing something alcoholic]], desperately needs to find someplace quiet where she can scream for a while.** Harry decides against it after the traumatic events of [[spoiler: Hermione's death]], concluding it wouldn't help.* CarnivoreConfusion: When Harry discovers Parseltongue, he stops eating meat in case snakes and other animals really are sapient -- and then wonders in horror if ''plants'' are too (it turns out there's no evidence they are).* CastFromHitPoints: Although most in-universe magic draws on a caster's magic reserve, so that people who exhaust their magic faint or are physically fatigued, and students magic grows year by year, [[spoiler: Harry's Patronus charm draws on something besides that magic. In Chapter 54 it threatens to consume his life when he loses control over it. Other Patronuses are based on running from death not combating it, so presumably do not have this issue.]]* CastFromLifespan: In Chapter 90, [[spoiler: Quirrell reveals that casting Fiendfyre will make your body lighter by one drop of blood, each time you cast it. PERMANENTLY.]]* CatGirl: In something of ContinuityNod to the Chamber of Secrets, it is revealed in chapter 78 that a Beauxbatons girl was accidentally was stuck as one permanently after getting cat hair in Polyjuice potion and then not getting help immediately. * CelebrityParadox: Chapter 30 mentions "JohnWilliams's Imperial March". So about ten years after the time frame of this story, what film is John Williams going to be writing the musical score for if it's not the first ''Film/HarryPotter'' movie?** Another instance is {{Lampshaded}} in an author's note: "The version of decision theory used in this chapter is not the academically dominant one. It's based on something called 'timeless decision theory' that's under development by (among others) Gary Drescher, Wei Dai, Vladimir Nesov, and, well... ''([[ShamelessSelfPromotion coughs a few times]])'' [[EliezerYudkowsky me]]."* CelibateHero: Harry's a bit young for that kind of thing.-->"She [a Griffindor girl] was gazing at him with one of those looks which Harry had firmly decided to just ignore until he was older."* CharacterDeath: [[spoiler:Hermione Granger. The repercussions will be severe.]]* ChekhovsGun: Harry's father's rock. Discussed outright in chapter 97.* ChekhovsGag: A subtle one. The way Harry gets Hermione [[spoiler:to avoid going to Askaban for allegedly attempting to murder Draco]] is inspired by the fake setup of the Weasley twins' prank on Rita Skeeter.-->'''Harry:''' It would seem that one Mr. Arthur Weasley was placed under the Imperius Curse by a Death Eater whom my father killed, thus creating a debt to House Potter [...] Do people actually do that sort of thing around here?** In Chapter 72 Harry said that if he denied doing everything he didn't do it would be suspicious if he refused to comment on things he did do. Like: "Did you do the prank with the invisible paint?" and he said "no" and with "Do you know who messed with the Griffindor Seeker's Broomstick?" and he said "I refuse to comment." In Chapter 104 we find out those weren't hypothetical.* TheChessmaster: Dumbledore, Lucius Malfoy, and Voldemort.* ChessMotifs: Frequent references to someone's "game," "pieces," "pawns," and "sacrifice" (in the context of sacrificing a piece to further one's political game, not magic rituals that require sacrifice).* ChildByRape: Likely the case with Bellatrix Black's son Lesath Lestrange, as Voldemort "gave" her to the Lestrange brothers. * ChirpingCrickets: The noises made by the various gizmos on Dumbledore's desk fill the awkward pauses in his conversations with Harry.* ChronicHeroSyndrome: Harry has a bad case of it -- something that becomes particularly clear in Chapter 27.-->'''Neville:''' Do you have to do literally ''anything'' anyone asks you?\\'''Harry:''' ''Do?'' No. Feel guilty about not doing? Yes. [...] Every time someone cries out in prayer and I can't answer, I feel guilty about not being God.* ClapYourHandsIfYouBelieve: Discussed in regards to magic.-->''"And you, Mum, your theory says that the professor should be able to do this, and if that doesn't happen, you'll admit you're mistaken. Nothing about how magic doesn't work when people are sceptical of it, or anything like that."''* CliffHanger:** Chapter 33, [[spoiler: who will get the Christmas wish is up to Zabini.]] (Chapter 41 contains more of a LiteralCliffhanger.)** The author's note at the close of Chapter 80 is:--->This story will next update on Tuesday, March 27.\\You have five days to think of something.** And again at the end of Chapter 113:---> [[spoiler: This is your final exam.\\You have 60 hours.\\Your solution must allow Harry to evade immediate death despite being naked, holding only his wand, facing 36 Death Eaters plus the fully resurrected Lord Voldemort.\\If a viable solution is posted before *12:01AM Pacific Time* (8:01AM UTC) on Tuesday, March 3rd, 2015, the story will continue to Ch. 121.\\Otherwise you will get a shorter and sadder ending.]]* ColorfulThemeNaming: Trying to remain incognito and failing during his first trip to Platform 9 3/4, Harry asks Ron to call him Mr. Black. Malfoy arrives and says it is a good name, but the Black family may object. He suggests Mr. Silver instead, Ron counters with Mr. Gold, but Harry decides to TakeAThirdOption with Mr. Bronze, foreshadowing Harry's sorting a few chapters later.* ComicallyMissingThePoint** Harry feels this way about the entire rest of the wizarding world after Malfoy tells him that as far as they're concerned, the most important implications of his Parselmouth abilities involve him possibly being the Heir of Slytherin. Harry, meanwhile, has more important things to think about: "SNAKES ARE SENTIENT!?"** The non-Muggleborn members of S.P.H.E.W. don't exactly get what Hermione is trying to tell them about feminism.** When listening to the Weasley twins discussing the Chudley Cannons, Harry figures it is "some bizarre, mind-affecting substance".* TheComplainerIsAlwaysWrong: Harry argues against Quirrell's call for unity by pointing out that this trope is what you get when you have too much unity.* ComplexityAddiction: Lucius is definitely against this. According to his "RuleOfThree", any real-world diabolical scheme will only work if it depends on no more than three events happening, unlike in fiction (note that the lead-in to giving Draco this lecture was a play titled ''[[Manga/DeathNote The Tragedy of Light]]''). And since "only a fool would attempt a plot that was ''as complicated as possible'', the real limit was two."** Dumbledore takes the opposite approach: set up *as many crazy plans as possible*, so that even if most of them are going to fail, at least one of them is likely to succeed anyway - or, at least, leave you in a position where you can take the credit for whatever it is that actually happened.* CompositeCharacter: Hagrid and Dumbledore are still there, but Professor [=McGonagall=] takes most of their roles of concerned guardian and reasonable authority figure. This frees Dumbledore to play up his Chessmaster persona.* ConfusionFu: The tactic adopted by Harry's Chaos Legion, with appropriately varying effectiveness.* ContinuityNod: Many to the canon universe. In Chapter 15, during [=McGonagall=]'s speech in their first Transfiguration class, she tosses out a throwaway line about [[Literature/HarryPotterAndThePrisonerOfAzkaban an Animagus missing a limb would still be missing the limb in animal form]]. In Chapter 45, Quirrell mentions [[Literature/HarryPotterAndTheDeathlyHallows a spell of cursed fire]] that can destroy artifacts like the Sorting Hat but not Dementors.* CoolAndUnusualPunishment: Quirrell has turned annoying humming into an ''art''. Note that no magic is involved.-->The only possible explanation for how this mode of humming came to exist is that it was deliberately designed by some unspeakably cruel genius who woke up one day, feeling bored with ordinary torture, who decided to handicap himself and find out whether he could break someone's sanity ''just by humming at them''.* CouchGag: The J.K. Rowling attribution at the beginning of the first 30 chapters.* CourtroomAntic: Despite Dumbledore's severe warning that doing anything fancy will just make things worse, Harry eventually succumbs to this trope when it becomes clear they're going to lose [[spoiler:Hermione's trial]]. And then escalates his antics, and then escalates it a little more. And then once more at the end just to impress everyone.* CourtroomEpisode: Chapters 80 and 81 in Taboo Tradeoffs.* CrazyPrepared** Harry insists on filling up his BagOfHolding with anything he could end up needing if something goes horribly wrong, and explains the Planning Fallacy to anyone who tells him not to worry so much. He ends up using much of it, too.** And Moody himself.--->Mad-Eye Moody had once worked out how long it had taken him, in retrospect, to achieve what he now considered a decent level of caution -- weighed up how much experience it had taken him to get good instead of lucky -- and had begun to suspect that most people died before they got there. Moody had once expressed this thought to Lyall, who had done some ciphering and figuring, and told him that a typical Dark Wizard hunter would die, on average, eight and a half times along the way to becoming "paranoid". This explained a great deal, assuming Lyall wasn't lying.** Snape's preparations against the ''possible'', eventual return of Voldemort, while reasonable for the level of threat the man presents, are nonetheless frightening in their thoroughness. For ''years'' Snape had been going around and spiking graves with different potions in the event Voldemort might try to use the contents of his father's grave for some resurrection ritual. Many different graves over a wide area were similarly booby-trapped in the event that Voldemort thought ahead and obscured the grave's true location beforehand. The "most likely" grave is laced with seventeen different draughts, refreshed yearly, including LSD, ''[[MushroomSamba just on the off chance it'd have any actual effect on Voldie!]]''. Conversely, Snape and Mad-Eye come to the conclusion that Voldemort probably out-CrazyPrepared them by simply making the actual grave into an unremarkable field.** Amelia Bones, Head of Magical Law Enforcement. Who has come up with a procedure manual which includes possibilities such as a code RJ-L20 "Guard requires relief because prisoner is attempting psychological warfare against him/her and is succeeding". It also states that it is ''not'' up to the person receiving this code to determine whether or not it is valid. They are merely required to act on it ''immediately''. Its validity will only be evaluated ''after'' the guard in question has been relieved.* CrouchingMoronHiddenBadass: Professor Quirrell seems to flip between narcoleptic weirdo and intensely-passionate professor regularly. And apparently, he's a sixth dan in at least one martial art, and he completely outclasses a trained Auror in combat. Though this is only natural, given that [[spoiler:he's Voldemort]].* CrypticConversation:** In Chapter 27, Harry talks to Snape about a bully and a love, the identity of whom he finds out too late.** Harry bluffs his way through one of these with Lucius Malfoy in Chapter 38, without ever figuring out what it was really about. It turns out that this may have been a bad idea.* CurbStompBattle: Quirrell vs. Auror Bahry in chapter 53. [[spoiler:It ends in the unexpected way nevertheless.]]* CuriosityCausesConversion: Part of Harry's plan for Draco.-->One case of true curiosity had the same sort of redeeming power in rationality that one case of [[ThePowerOfLove true love]] had in movies.* CuriosityIsACrapshoot: A character is at one point "almost killed by his lack of curiosity."[[note]]Harry is so distracted by Neville's rememberall and getting admonished for improper time-turner usage that he doesn't realize broomsticks work by Aristotelian motion. In Chapter 59, he attaches a quite powerful Newtonian rocket to a broomstick with unexpected consequences.[[/note]]* DangerouslyGenreSavvy:** This version of Voldemort has apparently read (actually, ''written his own version of'') the EvilOverlordList. This has made him smarter about how he manipulates people, but it also strengthened him to the extent that in Chapter 20 we find that (same spoiler as AllThereInTheManual) [[spoiler: ''Voldemort made the Pioneer plaque a Horcrux.'']]** In Chapter 49, Quirrell mentions two of the rules by number, except that his versions of the rules are nearly the opposite of the rules on the EvilOverlordList (e.g. "Never turn into a giant snake" vs. "Become an Animagus"). So if Quirrell wrote the EvilOverlordList, then he intentionally introduced some errors in it to throw people off the scent! Sort of. Because he also pointed out to Harry in an earlier chapter that if you're going to follow ''all'' the rules ''all'' the time, there's no point in even being a Dark Wizard. So being an Animagus may be a place his disagrees with the real EvilOverlordList, but then again it may be one of those exceptions he allowed himself. The fact that he calls it a rule implies the former, but it's hard to say.* DarkIsNotEvil: Thoroughly {{deconstructed}}. Although most noteworthy evil wizards are referred to as Dark, including Voldemort, much of the cast (especially Harry, Quirrell, anyone Slytherin) use it to refer instead to methodologies involving force, trickery, threat of force, blackmail, etc. ** [[DiscussedTrope Discussed]] in this quote from Hermione: "But the thing that people forget sometimes, is that even though appearances can be misleading, they're usually not."* [[EvilIsOneBigHappyFamily Dark Is One Big Happy Family]]: Averted. Most of the characters who were villains (or came off as villains) in canon ''do not'' have a mutual agenda here, to the point that Draco has somewhat different priorities than Lucius, neither of them trust Quirrell, Snape doesn't collaborate with any of them, and Harry's in some way or another getting what he wants from all of them. Blaise Zabini seems to be quite happy to do whatever the hell he wants, and then you have Slytherins like Daphne Greengrass who seem more motivated to enjoy childhood and get through school than participate in any sort of conspiracy. [[spoiler:And now Bellatrix has escaped from Azkaban.]] From a Gryffindor perspective, it probably looks like Magical England has its own BigBadEnsemble. [[spoiler:And that's without mentioning Mr. Hat And Coat, "Santa Claus," and the fact that Lucius and Draco believe that Professor Dumbledore ''immolated'' Narcissa Malfoy.]]* DarkMistress: Bellatrix.* DeadEndJob: Emphasized more than in canon. ''Everyone'' knows they'll only have Quirrell for one year, and just hopes they'll at least have him for the ''whole'' year. [[SkewedPriorities Whatever it takes.]]* DeadpanSnarker:** Snape seems to have elements of this. Professor [=McGonagall=], in hysterics, points out that the remarkably disruptive Harry Potter has an invisibility cloak, is immune to mind-reading (and, due to the same discipline, is able to resist truth-potions), and is [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking friends with the Weasley twins]], to which Dumbledore helpfully adds mention of the Time Turner. Snape then contributes:--->'''Snape:''' Should I teach him to brew Polyjuice, Headmaster? I ask only for the sake of completeness, in case you are not satisfied with the magnitude of your pet disaster.\\'''Dumbledore:''' [[MythologyGag Maybe next year.]]* DeconstructionFic: Multiple tropes are {{Deconstructed}}.* DeliberateValuesDissonance: Discussed in chapter 47. Salazar Slytherin could cast a Patronus, but many modern Slytherins can't despite sharing most of his values. [[spoiler:Harry hypothesizes that Salazar's hatred for Muggleborns was more "innocent" in that it was simply something he grew up believing; even while hating Muggleborns, he saw nothing wrong with it and as such was happy enough to cast a Patronus. On the other hand, modern Slytherins simply need Muggleborns as a scapegoat to hate because on some level they realize that they are pathetic and weak despite the proud Slytherin tradition]].* DemocracyIsBad: Professor Quirrell strongly argues this to Harry in favor of a strong magical dictatorship which could fend off a Dark Lord and set things right.* DemotedToExtra:** Hagrid's in the fic, but has no relevance to the plot.** Ron appears every now and again, but generally stays OutOfFocus.* DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment:--> '''[[spoiler:Tracey]]''': "That's Darke Lady spelled D-A-R-K-E, with an E!"--> '''[[spoiler:Snape]]''': Seers are the pawns of time, Mr. Potter. Coincidence is beneath them, and they are above it.* DesignItYourselfEquipment: What happens when transfiguration is commonplace.* DevilsAdvocate: As a rationalist, Harry has it as a defining character trait that he must assess all available sides of an argument, whether no true advocate of that argument is present, or even exists. This has led to him acting as the Devil's Advocate for himself, as well as using the trope for other people as a form of the Socratic Method of argument.* DiabolusExMachina:** Comed-Tea is a [[{{Pun}} comedy]] version. [[spoiler:Or it just seems like one.]]** {{Discussed}} in chapter 94.---> Having the enemy just bypass all the protagonists' work, as a result of planning and actions taken out of literary sight, would be a diabolus ex machina, and dramatically unsatisfying.* DifficultButAwesome: In the battle of the Self Actualization arc, Harry and Neville had to train very hard to be able to wear [[spoiler:full suits of armor and cast Stupefy]]. Still, the spell takes a LOT out of Harry's magic reserves to use, but allows him and Neville to [[spoiler:take out Sunshine Army by themselves]].* DisguisedHostageGambit: Amelia Bones warns her Aurors to make sure this [[DefiedTrope isn't]] being pulled on them.* DitzyGenius: Harry.* DivideAndConquer: A common strategy in the battle sequences.* DontCallMeSir: "Please, Harry! Headmaster sounds so formal. Just call me Heh for short."* DoomyDoomsOfDoom:** The Chaos Legion's marching song. To the tune of the [[StarWars Imperial March]] no less.** Also, [=McGonagall=] briefly fears that the Sorting Hat will create a new House of Doom just for Harry.** The inexplicable feelings of doom Harry gets when he stands too close to Quirrell.** Susan Bones' thoughts about SPHEW's latest mission. It's doomed.** You can't see Neville being a badass and ''not'' think it requires musical accompaniment.* DoorStopper: The story's word count so far exceeds that of the first four Harry Potter books put together, and when formatted like an actual ''Harry Potter'' book, the first 83 chapters exceed 1300 pages. And it appears to be nowhere near finished, considering that its apparent ambition is to resolve the plot of ''all seven books'' before Harry's first year is out.* DoubleReverseQuadrupleAgent: Blaise Zabini.* DoubleStandard: Hermione suspects [=McGonagall=] is more protective of her than she would be if Hermione were a boy. Also, Harry is especially bothered by the sight of girls being knocked out by sleep hexes.** In Chapter 76, [[spoiler:Rianne Felthorne]] thinks the description of stalking both applies and is okay when she thinks it is referring to her behavior towards [[spoiler:Professor Snape]], but not when it turns out to be about a boy in her class toward her.* DramaticIrony: Many of the things that Quirrell and Dumbledore say, largely concerning Horcruxes, the prophesy, and Deathly Hallows, have hidden meanings that Harry misses because he lacks backstory to make alternative hypotheses plausible.* DramaticReading: [[http://www.hpmorpodcast.com/ There is now a nice podiobook available.]]* DramaticThunder: Lampshaded, like so many others.-->'''Harry:''' I'm wondering if there's a spell to make lightning flash in the background whenever I make an ominous resolution.* DroppedABridgeOnHim: Chapter 88. Mrs. Norris gets eaten offscreen. [[spoiler:And in chapter 89, Hermione dies while Harry desperately tries to save her]].* DullSurprise:** The mutual reaction of Harry and his father when [=McGonagall=] uses ''Wingardium Leviosa'' on the latter. Harry himself is confused as to why his reaction was so low-key, being of the opinion that his entire world being turned on its head should merit at least a minor FreakOut.--->Harry looked at his father.\\"Huh," Harry said.\\His father looked back at him. "Huh," his father echoed.\\Then Professor Verres-Evans looked back at Professor [=McGonagall=]. "All right, you can put me down now."** [=McGonagall=] turning into a cat ''does'' get an extreme reaction, apparently because the associated violations of thermodynamics are much more fundamental violations of physical laws than a floating human.* DyingAlone: Hermione's greatest fear.* EatenAlive: [[spoiler:Hermione Granger]] in chapter 89.* EccentricMentor: Dumbledore, even more so than his canon counterpart.* [[ElementalRockPaperScissors The Five Elements]]: In chapter 46, when Professor Quirrell asks Harry how to hide something permanently, Harry responds using the Western five elements of Earth, Fire, Water, Air, and Aether (outer space).* EmpathicEnvironment: Mary's Room.** The chair in [=McGonagall=]'s office has been transfigured so many times it seems to reflect her moods. At one point, it is so big and soft it seems to be giving Harry a hug.** Quirrell's room in the infirmary has no natural light. It may be that the infirmary has a variety of rooms for different tastes, or Hogwarts alters rooms to suit patients.* EmptyShell: Harry becomes this for a few paragraphs due to prolonged exposure to a Dementor. He still acts and reacts, but his internal monologue is utterly mechanistic. * EnemyMine: Draco and Hermione eventually are driven to make common cause. [[spoiler: After Hermione is murdered, Lucius Malfoy realizes he's been played and allies with Harry against their common enemy, together bringing in enough allies to get the board of governors to act on Harry's plans for security.]]* EnemyWithin: While Harry is a superb rationalist, he resorts to his dark side when he needs to bring out the big guns.* EntertaininglyWrong: When he sees a photo of Ginny "sighing longingly" over a photo of himself, Harry thinks this has probably been staged.* EpicFail: Only mentioned after the fact, but Harry once had a pet rock. ''It died.''* EpilepticTrees: Quirinus Quirrell in-universe and out-universe.* EternalEnglish: Averted. It's noted that several portraits are so old that modern English speakers can't understand them.* EthicalHedonist: May not be Harry's exact ethical calculus, but is most likely close. At least when he's thinking things through...* EvenEvilHasLovedOnes: Whatever else you can say about Lucius Malfoy, he appears to genuinely love his son.* EvenEvilHasStandards: In Chapter 20 it's shown that Professor Quirrell strongly resents Muggles for inventing [[AtomicHate nuclear weapons.]], though at the same time he's fond of space travel, since it would allow wizard kind to live settle beyond Earth. Also, in Chapter 42 it is shown that the wizarding world doesn't think highly of homophobia in the Muggle world, with one Slytherin girl even believing stories of violence carried out against homosexuals are just a rumor spread by ''Death Eaters'' to make ''Muggles'' look bad. They are also mind-boggled by color-based racism.* EverythingsBetterWithSparkles: Averted for Daphne, who is cursed to sparkle by upperclassmen.* EvilCannotComprehendGood** Or at least Dumbledore believes this, though that may just be his idealism showing.** In an Omake about if it was a ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings'' fanfic, this was implied to be defied by AwesomenessByAnalysis.--->Just as it had not occurred to Gandalf that the Enemy might learn to comprehend the good intentions of his enemies by '''looking'''...** In Chapter 76, Mr. Hat and Cloak attempts to convince Hermione to flee Hogwarts. He fails utterly because he doesn't understand that Hermione just won't trust someone cloaked in an all-covering black mist. [[spoiler: He continues to try for several hours, [[LaserGuidedAmnesia memory-wiping]] her every time he reaches an impasse in the conversation, and eventually hits on disguising himself as something less dark.]] Given Mr. Hat and Cloak's previous competence at running conspiracies, it seems his ability to form mental models of people has serious flaws when it attempts to analyze Hermione. In chapter 108, [[spoiler:Quirrell explains that he had to resort to giving Hermione a false memory of Draco plotting evil; when he mocks her for her ideals, Harry points out that they ''worked'' in that they made her immune to manipulation, and Quirrell concedes the point]].** For a truly epic example, in chapter 38, Lucius tells Harry "When I read your response to Professor Quirrell's little speech... I was puzzled, at first, for it seemed not in your own interest." Which mistakenly assumes that Harry is self-interested. It's never explicitly said what conclusion Lucius reached as a result of this mistake, but it's implied that Lucius ended up concluding that Harry ''is Voldemort.''** Quirrell's speech itself, for that matter. It's essentially about the "security vs. freedom" debate, except he doesn't recognize the "freedom" side as even ''existing''. Either it didn't occur to him or he dismissed it as irrelevant.* EvilCounterpart: Grindelwald was Dumbledore's "dark mirror," and Dumbledore thinks Voldemort must be Harry's. Harry is dubious.** But he doesn't know about [[spoiler:Quirrell]]. If he did, he'd realize that Dumbledore is actually spot-on. Both are rationalists who are exasperated by irrationality in others; both reject/fear death and seek immortality; and both have a strong interest in space travel.** Bellatrix is the evil counterpart of Hermione. Both were the most promising witch of Hogwarts and considered nice if quiet by friends. Bellatrix had to suffer Dementors for ten years, and Hermione is terribly afraid of them. And both are bound to Voldemort and Harry, respectively, by something deeper than an Imperius curse.* EvilLaugh: Harry often uses one, usually when role-playing as an EvilGenius, or just to sarcastically point out how non-evil his plans are, such as his plot to make Draco friends with Hermione, or desire to find a way to make [[spoiler:everyone]] immortal.* EvilMentor: Professor Quirrell.* EvilMeScaresMe: Harry's "mysterious dark side".* EvilOverlooker: The [[http://hpmor.com/methods_of_rationality_by_zerinity-small.jpg?9d7bd4 commissioned poster]].* EvilSoundsDeep: This makes it harder for eleven-year-old Harry to sound truly fearsome, even when he tries.* EvilVsEvil: Draco believes (along most Slytherins, apparently) Dumbledore was the [[BigBad Greater Evil]] and that Voldemort and his Death Eaters, though bad, were the only people with a chance to stand up to him.* ExactWords** In Chapter 25, Quirrell says to Rita Skeeter: "[[spoiler:Yet I find that I cannot deny myself the pleasure of simply crushing you.]]"** Later, "I promise not to help General Granger in any way that the two of you don't know about."** Quirrell figures that the Portkey given to Harry would take him to someplace in London, instead of the wizarding school in America as promised. He then notes that the attached letter did not explicitly say the Portkey would take Harry there; merely that the Salem Witch's Institute would accept him, and that Harry now had a Portkey.** Evidently common in Ravenclaw, as when Harry promises in chapter 14 that he doesn't intend to prank his fellow students, it takes Penelope Clearwater only a few moments to determine that he didn't leave any loopholes. Though she's not ''entirely'' correct on that count, as [[spoiler:he ''was'' planning to use his newly-obtained Time Turner to prank his past self and complete the StableTimeLoop, which his promise does not preclude him from doing]].** How Harry gets around the promises he had to make before meeting with the Malfoys in Gringotts.* ExpoSpeakGag: While shopping in Diagon Alley for first aid supplies, Harry encounters a "Dementor Exposure Treatment" (chocolate).* {{Expy}}: Rationalist!Harry shares quite a few similarities with [[EndersGame Ender]], such as his intent to kill, the mock battles, and his ingenuity. He explicitly embraces the comparison: "Why are you all upside down?"** He also shares many similarities with Artemis Fowl, probably because of a StrangeMindsThinkAlike kind of reason.** The author has explicitly stated that part of his inspiration was "[[Literature/VorkosiganSaga Miles Vorkosigan]] goes to Hogwarts".[[/folder]]

[[folder: F-J]]* FacePalm: The usual response to Harry's antics.* FalseReassurance:** In chapter 16, Harry desperately tries to come up with something to counter Quirrell's assertions that Harry has the killing intent--but the only thing he can come up with is "I'm not a psychopath, I'm just very creative", which is hardly any less ominous.** Inverted in chapter 30. "Dragon Army has never lost a single battle, and Hermione Granger has a very good memory."* FamilyFeud: Harry really [[DefiedTrope doesn't want one]] with Draco.* FamilyUnfriendlyDeath: [[spoiler: Hermione Granger, of all people.]]* FantasticTimeManagement: Harry gets a Time Turner to cure his sleep disorder.* FeedTheMole: A lot of moles get fed in chapter 33 after traitors have turned the battles into a farce.* FelonyMisdemeanor: Played for laughs in Chapter 29 when Hermione goes to Quirrell for advice.-->'''Hermione''': I have a lot of Quirrell points, don't I?\\'''Professor Quirrell''': You do indeed. Though one less than you had before. Terrible, isn't it? Just think, if I don't like your reason for coming here, you could lose another fifty. Maybe I'd take them away one... by one... by one...\\'''Hermione''': You're really evil, did anyone ever tell you that?* FigureItOutYourself: Justified; once Harry figures out how to [[spoiler: destroy a Dementor]], he realizes that just telling someone the secret won't make it work for them, but ''will'' render their ability to use the Patronus Charm useless without the proper mindset. Making any explanation a potential BrownNote.* TheFilmOfTheBook: A ''[[VideoGame/TheSims Sims]]'' [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpejSWY0Wa0&list=PLC64C47A407D58AAC version]]* {{Fingore}}: A bully threatens quite seriously to "[[MakeItLookLikeAnAccident accidentally]]" break Harry's fingers.* FirstGirlWins: Harry's and Hermione's parents are already hearing wedding bells, just because Harry is the first boy Hermione's ever seemed to notice in "that way" and Hermione is the first ''child'' Harry's ever seemed to notice even ''exists''.** Though Harry's parents don't know about [[HoYay Draco]], whom Harry ''did'' befriend even before Hermione...* FirstNameBasis: Harry often doesn't bother to call his professors by title or even last name.* FiveManBand: It looks like Harry's making one.** The Hero: Harry** The Lancer: Draco** The Smart Guy: Hermione** The Big Guy: Neville** The Chick: Quirrell/Dumbledore*** Harry doesn't help the case for Hermione being the Smart Guy [[spoiler:by virtue of the fact that he has a high enough IQ to be able to understand the blueprints of a solid fuel rocket well enough to transfigure one from everyday household objects.]]* FlatEarthAtheist: {{Discussed|Trope}} in the author's notes -- Yudkowsky stated that he wished to demonstrate that even though there ''is'' an afterlife in the canon ''Harry Potter'' series, the dearth of available evidence (without, you know, ''dying'') meant that disbelieving in its existence was still a thoroughly reasonable standpoint. This arguably required Dumbledore to do a fairly poor job of ''presenting'' said evidence.* FlatWhat** Happens in the very first chapter:--->Then a boy's voice said, calmly and quietly, "What."** In chapter 24, Harry mentions stealing gold from his own Gringotts vault. This is [[spoiler:Draco's]] reaction.* ForbiddenFriendship:** Hermione and Draco. One's a Mudblood, one's the son of the top Death Eater. Everyone in Slytherin expects Draco to destroy her.** Harry and Draco. Dumbledore and Lucius Malfoy only allow it to continue to turn the other.* ForbiddenFruit: Harry muses on how susceptible people are to this after he himself discovers that he desperately wants to be able to [[spoiler: leave Hogwarts]] as soon as he's not allowed to.* ForcedToWatch: The martial arts instructor who wouldn't teach Voldemort had to watch his students tortured and killed.* ForHappiness--> '''Harry Potter:''' ... and in any case you're asking the wrong question. The question is, did it do more good than harm, or more harm than good?* {{Foreshadowing}}: ** After [=McGonagall=] awards Harry ten points for thinking of putting protective shells on Spimster wickets, thereby increasing Harry's House Point lead over Hermione, but still earned non-academically:--->"''PROFESSOR!''" Harry shrieked. "This is ''our'' war! Stop meddling!"\\"Now you have until Thursday of next week, Mr. Potter. Unless, of course, you engage in some sort of mischief and lose House Points before then. Addressing a professor disrespectfully, for example." Professor [=McGonagall=] put a finger on her cheek and looked reflective. "I expect you'll hit negative numbers before the end of Friday."** Guess what happens on Friday. [=McGonagall=] continues, likely referring to the events in Self-Actualization.--->"My, I wonder how long it will take before Miss Granger does something deserving of a dinnertime announcement? I look forward to seeing it, whatever it may be."** In chapter 20, Harry finds out that [[spoiler:Quirrell loves the idea of space travel, and secretly cast ''some'' kind of spell on the Pioneer plaque. Harry then wonders aloud about the nature of the spell, one suggestion being binding someone's ghost to the plaque.]] Upon hearing this, Quirrell immediately tells Harry not to talk of such things, as ''any'' spell like that would be considered Dark. [[spoiler:In case you haven't figured it out, ''the Pioneer plaque is one of Voldemort's Horcruxes'']].** In chapter 6, Harry's worst-case imagining of [[spoiler: a classmate being bitten by a horrible monster cursing him with her dying breath for not being prepared]] prompts him to buy a magical medkit. In [[spoiler: chapter 89, Harry's nightmares come to pass as imagined. But no amount of medical preparation is sufficient to save Hermione, and her last words are "not your fault".]]* ForScience:-->'''Harry:''' I shall achieve my [[AGodAmI objectives]] through the power... ''of Science!''* ForTheEvulz: Harry and Dumbledore ponder why Voldemort has become so inhumanly evil. The best answer they can come up is that a dark wizard might look at the injustice of the world and ask, "Why not?"* FridgeHorror: A few, In-universe.** After Harry finds out about Parseltongue he starts to wonder if any other animals are intelligent enough to communicate. Then he starts to wonder about plants. Then he starts to skip meals. Confounded by the fact that the next meal he has is [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Tenorman_Must_Die Tenorman's family chili.]] Harry makes sure that it contains no meat of snakes or squirrels, since those are the only (potentially) talking animals...** More subtle is the fear Harry learns when he sees what kind of proper protections he should have had in place when doing Transfiguration / science experiments with Hermione.* FriendshipMoment:** Harry to Hermione: Offering her his Deathly Hallow so she can fight bullies. Giving Lucius Malfoy his entire fortune and then some to save her from Azkaban.** Harry to Quirrell: Deciding to not lose during the Stanford Prison Experiment in order to save him.** Hermione to Harry: Going to face the Dementor again to figure out how it's attacking Harry.* FromBadToWorse: [[spoiler:Hermione]]* GainingTheWillToKill: [[spoiler: Harry Evens-Verres]] crosses this line during a battle with [[spoiler:a mountain troll]], and a close friend is mortally wounded,. And later [[spoiler:cooly plans the murder of Lucius Malfoy if he refuses his offer to form an alliance, as he will otherwise remain an enemy]].* GambitPileup:** The War of Three Armies. One of the few cases where "thirty" is an ''understatement''. The author actually apologizes for the pileup in the author's notes, but explains that:--->I think I just had to get it out of my system by writing, at least once in my life, something more complicated than ''Manga/DeathNote''.** In the main plot, Harry, Draco, Dumbledore, and Quirrell all trying to be TheChessmaster, with varying degrees of success.*** A recent chapter has Snape commenting, "If I have learned anything in my tenure as Head of Slytherin, I have learned what ridiculous messes arise when there is more than one plotter and more than one plan."* GambitRoulette: Lucius also seems to have summed this one up perfectly: he told Draco that "any plot which required more than three different things to happen would never work in real life". However, "only an ''idiot'' would try a plan that is ''as complicated as possible'', so the real limit is two."* GenreSavvy / WrongGenreSavvy: Harry. Also Dumbledore, who is a big fan of ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings'' and [[InvokedTrope consciously casts himself]] into the role of ObiWan / ManipulativeBastard while pretending to be a CloudCuckoolander.* GettingCrapPastTheRadar: Dumbledore has an instrument that counts the, ah, "sneezes" of left-handed witches within the borders of France. [[spoiler: Pro Tip: sneeze is code for orgasm]].Though the radar was for the sake of Harry himself.* GirlsHaveCooties: Harry doesn't mind being around girls per se, but objects strongly to notions of romance or kissing.* AGlassInTheHand: Snape's reaction to the [[FilkSong Ghostbusters song]]. Instead of glass, though, it was a ''silver goblet''.** Said song has since been moved from the official plot to the omake files.* AGlassOfChianti: Quirrell's usual drink in Mary's Room. No, not evil at all...* AGodAmI: Harry's ultimate goal is:-->To understand everything important there is to know about the universe, apply that knowledge to become omnipotent, and use that power to rewrite reality because I have some objections to the way it works now.* GoldenSnitch: Upon having Quidditch explained to him, Harry immediately points out that the TropeNamer makes the entire rest of the game meaningless, and resolves to remove it. Not right away, he has other stuff to do... but, you know, eventually.** It's not just Quidditch that the Snitch horribly unbalances; as Quidditch points are directly added to House Points, Harry points out that Seekers earning 150 of them per game far, far outstrips any contributions any other students could make by doing well in their classes and makes the House Cup content more of a sporting trophy than anything academic. * GoneHorriblyRight: Dumbledore's pushing of Hermione towards trying harder to be a hero in her own right works all right. It works so well that the entire next eight chapters are about just how much trouble she stirs up as a result. Long before the end he is fearing for her life should things escalate further.** Chapter 89: After [[spoiler: Hermione dies]], Quirrell finally approves of the strength of Harry's determination… and then Trelawney makes a prophecy about the end of the world. In the next chapter Quirrell is grimly trying to get Professor [=McGonagall=] to divert Harry from his resolution and spell research.** A meta example, at the end of chapter 113 the author challenged the readers to figure out how Harry could get out of it by posting their guess as a review, and threatened to give them a bad ending if no-one figured it out. There were so many entries sent in that within 40 hours the comment section was longer than any of the canon books, and he had to [[http://www.reddit.com/r/HPMOR/comments/2xnyi0/113_help_my_evil_plan_has_worked_all_too_well/ appeal to the fans]] to try and help sort them out.* GoodAngelBadAngel: In more than one scene, Harry debates with his inner Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Slytherin, and Hufflepuff, as represented in [[http://dinosaurusgede.deviantart.com/art/to-take-the-diary-or-not-176998021 this piece of fanart]]. Amusingly, or perhaps bizarrely, all but Ravenclaw start making fun of him when he gets worried about the implications of Parseltongue, in ways that have nothing to do with moral arguments (for instance Hufflepuff starts insisting he resort to cannibalism). Chapter 63 contains what may be a justification for all the voices in Harry's head sounding so much like distinct individuals, but nothing but the RuleOfFunny can save them in chapter 48.* GossipEvolution: Rumors in Hogwarts have a tendency to mutate. Some had few witnesses to the original event (e.g., Harry using the ghost of Slytherin to stop Padma from spreading rumors about Hermione; what exactly happened in Hermione's Wizengamot trial) and some had many witnesses (e.g., Harry returning from dementation). Harry allows them to spread because uncertainty makes more likely that the truth will remain hidden.** Hermione wonders what older Ravenclaw girls are reading that makes them ship Harry-Hermione.* GossipyHens: The girls of Slytherin. Especially Millicent Bulstrode.** Hell, almost all the schoolgirls.* GravityMaster: Feather Falling potion works much like the similarly-named ''D&D'' spell.* TheGrovel: Harry's lack of experience dealing with friends combined with following the advice of Quirrell has lead to multiple instances with Hermione.* TheGuardsMustBeCrazy: Averted, even for a small thing like patronuses acting strangely, [[spoiler: Azkaban's]] guards send patrols to be safe. Another sign of [[spoiler: Amelia Bones's]] genre-savvy-ness.--> ''[I]t was [[ItsProbablyNothing probably nothing]], but procedure was procedure.''* GuestFighter: In chapter 77, from the SburbPatchNotes thread. [[spoiler: It's [[TheUnfettered Tricia Glasswell]], but most likely an AlternateUniverse version of her.]]* HappilyAdopted: One of the main differences from canon; Petunia and her husband think of Harry as their son, and are kind and loving parents.* HappinessInSlavery: The House Elves,. However, in this version Hermione's issues with it are downplayed.-->'''Harry:''' Of course whatever Dark wizard who created them in the first place was evil beyond compare, but that was no reason to deny the poor creatures the servitude they were bred to enjoy.* {{Headdesk}}: [=McGonagall=], in chapter 61.* HeelRealization: Harry seems to be on the verge of this around chapter 55, at the worst possible place and time for it to happen: [[spoiler: as he's breaking Bellatrix Black out of Azkaban. By himself.]]** And in chapter 82 [[spoiler:in the heat of the argument he pushes ''Dumbledore'' to the edge of one]].** In Chapter 93 [[spoiler: [=McGonnagal=] decides her focus on rules and responsibility has left Griffindor unwilling to take necessary risks and destroyed its heroic spirit and publicly recants.]]** In Chapter 94 [[spoiler: Neville has realised he should have helped Harry save Hermione rather than insisted they follow orders and stay where it was safe, and blames himself for her death.]]* HellholePrison: Azkaban, described even more vividly than in canon.* HeroicResolve** Harry, in [[spoiler:Azkaban]] when he realizes that giving up would doom [[spoiler:Quirrell]].** Villainous example (maybe): Tracey Davis in Chapter 70, after Quirrell chastises her.* HesitationEqualsDishonesty: Chapter 63, Harry and Draco both use this as a litmus test.* HistoricalInJoke: Red and green are associated with Christmas because a Gryffindor and a Slytherin were married during the Yule season in the distant past and became a symbol of brotherhood.* HitlerAteSugar: Harry falls into this fallacy briefly in chapter 35, but even after he's called on it his point still stands.* HobbesWasRight: Professor Quirrell's viewpoint, which he hopes to bring Harry to.* HomeschooledKids: Harry was one before attending Hogwarts.* HopelessBossFight: The Hogwarts battle in Chapter 67 is a non-video game example of this.* HotForTeacher: Rianne Felthorne is hopelessly infatuated with Snape, and when he demands her presence in his dungeons she immediately assumes he's propositioning her. ''For a threesome with Hermione Granger, no less!!''* HorrifyingTheHorror: [[spoiler: ''Dementors'']] are scared of Harry.* HufflepuffHouse: Oddly enough, Gryffindor, which is mainly filled with none too bright troublemakers, impulsive hotheads, and most of the non-Slytherin bullies. Hufflepuff itself is RescuedFromTheScrappyHeap by dint of hard work and loyalty being strong, positive traits in this universe.** However, the Weasley twins are fairly prominent and important characters, as is the head of house, far more so than the other heads of house (save Snape).* HumanSacrifice: It's strongly implied that Grindelwald was using the ''Holocaust'' to fuel some Dark ritual. Dumbledore mentioned that he was literally invincible while his Muggle allies were still making blood sacrifices for him, and they had to be stopped before he could be defeated. So yes, in those months where the wizarding world claimed Dumbledore was "waiting for the most dramatic moment," he was actually ''stopping the Holocaust''.* HumanSubspecies: Harry suspects that all of the intelligent races are magically altered human bloodlines, both because of their human features and because their mindset is at most like a different culture when you'd expect a completely alien perspective. The Goblins are definitely close enough to mainline human to mix, as in canon.* HumansAreBastards: Quirrell believes this. Harry thinks while many may be people also have the potential to be good and that some (like Hermione) are able to act on it.* [[HumansAreCthulhu Muggles Are Cthulhu]]: Draco's reaction to the moon landing.* HumansAreMorons: The premise of the fic is that most humans do not bother to think deep enough.* HumansAreSpecial: And our [[PlanetOfHats Hat]] is that of the ManipulativeBastard. Yay. Harry believing this gives him the power to [[BeyondTheImpossible destroy Dementors]]. So, yeah, definitely.* HurlItIntoTheSun: Harry asks if this would destroy a Dementor. Quirrell, not content with giving a simple response, deliberately misinterprets the question as asking if the ''sun'' would be destroyed. (The answer is "probably not, but I still wouldn't recommend trying it.")* IAlwaysWantedToSayThat** "[[StarWars Red 5 standing by.]]"** Also, "''[[EndersGame Why are you upside down?]]''"* ICanStillFight** Quirrell has to order Harry to rest after the events of the infamous Chapter 19.** Hannah Abbott literally says this during Quirrell's battle in Chapter 78.* IceCreamKoan: When Dumbledore desperately asks him for some wisdom, Harry resorts to spouting fake profundity -- and then is rather appalled at how easily Dumbledore buys it.* IcyBlueEyes: Quirrell and Dumbledore (when angry) are described as having these.* IdiotBall** {{Discussed|Trope}} in the Ch. 33-34 Author's Note: "[[AvertedTrope It is a general law of MoR that no one is ever holding the Idiot Ball.]]" However, Quirrell does explicitly break his own Evil Overlord rules when telling Harry about the Pioneer plaque, and Harry in turn seems to be trusting Quirrell to an unreasonable extent even given their burgeoning friendship.*** In particular, Harry agreeing to [[spoiler: help rescue Bellatrix from Azkaban]] was really stupid, especially since Quirrell's argument that she was corrupted doesn't support his thesis that she's innocent now (and that's assuming he's telling the truth at all). It is in-character for Harry (given his extreme hatred of Dementors and cynicism about the Ministry) and he does call himself on it later when he has twenty-twenty hindsight, but ''still''. (And conveniently, the actual moment of decision happened off-screen.)** Referenced among Madeye's list of precautions as "Bahl's Stupefaction", a highly addictive drug which hands you an Idiot Ball as a side effect.* IGaveMyWord: Quirrell seems surprised when Harry tells him he would never break a promise.* IgnoredEnamoredUnderling: Bellatrix to Voldemort.* IHaveThisFriend: With a touch of AndThatLittleGirlWasMe. Harry learns it's dangerous to give advice unless he knows who his interlocutor is ''really'' talking about.* IJustWantToBeNormal: Discussed in chapter 73.* IJustWantToBeSpecial: Discussed in chapter 73.* IKnowYouKnowIKnow: Quirrell teaches Harry to pull off more subtle kinds of deception, leading to situations like this:-->So either Severus ''was'' in fact modeling Harry as a one-level player, which made Severus himself two-level, and Harry's three-level move had been successful; or Severus was a four-level player and wanted Harry to ''think'' the deception had been successful.* IKnowYourTrueName: Neville pretends to summon Harry "by the power of [his] true name."* IllPretendIDidntHearThat: On Harry's second trip to Diagon Alley:-->"I do hope those five Galleons will be enough to last, since you counted them so carefully," said Professor Quirrell. "I doubt the Headmaster shall be so eager to entrust me with your vault key a second time, once he discovers I've been tricked."* ImADoctorNotAPlaceholder: "I'm a hat, not a god."* ImAHumanitarian: Once Harry realizes that Parsletounges are capable of speaking to snakes he starts to worry if this means snakes, and potentially any other thing he eats, my be sentient. While Harry hungrily wonders about the moral implications [[SplitPersonality Hufflepuff]] suggests he fix the problem by eating his fellow students. After all there is no debating whether ''they'' are sentient.* ImmortalityImmorality: According to Dumbledore, simply [[PrimalFear fearing death]], let alone trying to avoid it, is enough to warp one's soul.* ImmortalitySeeker: Harry wants everyone to be immortal.* ImprobableAge: ... Kinda goes without saying.* IncrediblyLamePun** After Draco has dropped [[spoiler:Hermione]] off the roof of Hogwarts (ItMakesSenseInContext and the victim got better), it is speculated that his goal is to drop all the Muggleborns. That's right: he's the Heir of "Slipperin" and the next "Drop Lord".--->Which was far too good a line for anyone to keep to themselves, so by nightfall it was all over Hogwarts, and the next morning it was the ''Quibbler'''s headline.** When Harry is trying to decide whether it is moral or not to eat meat, his inner Ravenclaw, Slytherin, Hufflepuff, and Gryffindor try to help:--->His inner Slytherin's mental voice was grim. ''You too will someday embrace the doctrine... that the end justifies the meats.'' This was followed by some mental snickering.** Chapter 67, about the rules how Hogwarts changes its geometry:--->Even after eight centuries, Hogwarts was still a little shy about changing in front of people.* INeedAFreakingDrink: [=McGonagall=] needs one ''desperately'' after shopping with Harry.* InsufferableGenius: All of Ravenclaw House, but ''especially'' Harry.* InsultBackfire:-->''Hermione's cheeks were going even redder. "You're really evil, did anyone ever tell you that?"\\"Miss Granger," Professor Quirrell said gravely, "it can be dangerous to give people compliments like that when they have not been truly earned. The recipient might feel bashful and undeserving and want to do something worthy of your praise...."''* IntelligenceEqualsIsolation: Harry spells this out to [=McGonagall=].* IntrinsicVow: Harry, even under [[spoiler:the Dementors' thrall in Azkaban]] ''will not'' kill.* InvisibleToNormals: Harry's trunk is [[WeirdnessCensor weird]] enough that his very unmagical dad has trouble looking directly at it.* IOweYouMyLife: Life debts in the wizarding world appear to be SeriousBusiness, as the Wizengamot (at least sometimes) makes official rulings about them.* IronicEcho** Quirrell's comment, "You have just found out that the real world does not ''always'' work like your worst nightmares," echoes Harry's justification for pranking Neville.** Harry turns Dumbledore's "This is not a request. This is your punishment" back on him.** Dumbledore notes on separate occasions that "Common sense is often mistaken for Legilimency," and that "Legilimency is sometimes mistaken for common sense."* {{Irony}}:** Harry asks to join the Death Eaters:--->'''Harry:''' You are about to invite me to join a secret organization full of interesting people like yourself, one of whose goals is to reform or overthrow the government of magical Britain, and yes, I'm in.** When Harry tells Hermione about his inner personalities, represented as inner voices discussing with each other inside his mind, she briefly considers trying this approach before her Common Sense warns her it might be a dangerous thing to try.** Harry's [[spoiler: insistent reasoning on why to buy a medical kit. The irony being that it didn't help.]]* IShallTauntYou: Draco ''thinks'' Harry is trying to break up his alliance with Hermione by teasing him about it mercilessly.* IsThisAJoke:-->Mere eyes could not have seen the invisible others: the eleven-year-old Boy-Who-Lived, and the living skeleton that was [[spoiler: Bellatrix Black]], and the Polyjuiced Defense Professor of Hogwarts, all traveling together through [[spoiler: Azkaban]]. If that was the beginning of a joke, Harry didn't know the punchline.* ItMayHelpYouOnYourQuest: Dumbledore with great ceremony gives Harry... his father's rock. It's just a big rock which is not special at all. [[spoiler: The fact that it actually does come in useful, and the circumstances where it does, are seen as so suspicious in-universe that it completely changes the state of political alliances by bringing the Malfoys in under Harry's personal banner.]]* ItsAllAboutMe: This is Hermione's motivation for becoming [[spoiler:General Sunshine]], mainly because she resents that Harry gets to be the centre of attention all the time.* ItsQuietTooQuiet: Spoofed in Chapter 13, when Harry wakes up thinking his dorm room is suspiciously quiet and then remembers there's a Silencing Charm on the bed.* IWasNeverHere: Harry says this to Professor Sprout when [[spoiler:setting up]] the Game, and it's implied in several other conversations.* JackBauerInterrogationTechnique: Harry suspects that Quirrell gained a certain piece of information through the use of "[[UnusualEuphemism lead-pipe Legilimency]]"... which is itself a "HoldYourHippogriffs" version of "rubber-hose cryptanalysis" -- that is, whipping somebody until they tell you the password.* {{Jerkass}}: Harry can get a little bit... abrasive with people who do not meet his personal standards. Example: telling a friend's parents at their first meeting that history will only remember them ''as'' her parents.** Or when, immediately following that, he says that the only reason history will know what their job ''was'' would be because they were her parents.* JumpedAtTheCall** The Sorting Hat tells Harry: "You're just guessing, or to put it more exactly, ''wishing'' that you have some ready-made heroic role that is your personal property." And Harry certainly acts the part later:--->Harry should have been more frightened, more reluctant, but instead he felt only that it was time and past time to start becoming the people he had read about in his books; to begin his journey toward what he had always known he was meant to be, a hero.** {{Deconstructed}} when Harry makes a series of less than optimal decisions in quick succession while [[spoiler: rescuing Bellatrix Black (whom he saw as a DamselInDistress) from Azkaban]]. He recognizes that this is a flaw in his own psychology and it remains to be seen how badly this will come back and bite him in the end.** Played Straight again in Chapter 69 for Tracey Davis, who is making up for the opportunity she realized she missed in Chapter 46.** Subverted in Chapter 85 when Harry [[spoiler: decides to wait to get stronger before going to Azkaban because there are many people he wants to save and going now could result in his death, and in doing so misses out on ever having his own phoenix]]. [[/folder]]

[[folder: K-O]]* KaleidoscopeEyes: Dumbledore's reflect his emotional state.* KangarooCourt: Although the ''entire'' court is not on the prosecution's side and its highest-ranking member is leading the defense, [[spoiler:Hermione's trial]] was hardly what one would consider "fair".* [[spoiler:KilledMidSentence]]: Neville gets a little cocky in his first mock battle. [[spoiler:So does Harry.]]* LampshadeHanging: For an enlightenment tract, the amount of lightbulbs being covered up could be considered ironic.* LateArrivalSpoiler: For the many readers who never got into the original ''Literature/HarryPotter'' books. Quirrell is ''whom?'' He did ''what'' to the [[spoiler:Pioneer plaque]]?* LeaningOnTheFourthWall: ---> Ch. 91: '''Harry''': Because I've wandered into a bloody stupid fantasy novel!\\Ch. 94: Under standard literary convention... the enemy wasn't supposed to look over what you'd done...* LikeAnOldMarriedCouple: Harry and Hermione, according to [[ShipperOnDeck Harry's dad]].* LikeBrotherAndSister: Harry and Hermione. Harry even compares them to [[Literature/EndersGame Ender and Valentine]].* LittleProfessorDialogue: Harry. Lampshaded frequently, and likely to be justified/deconstructed -- by now, most of the cast (including Harry himself) are aware that there is something very, very ''wrong'' with him. Draco's lapses into this, on the other hand, are a bit less excusable.* LivingForeverIsAwesome: Harry believes this. Dumbledore doesn't.* LoopholeAbuse: At Hogwarts, "invisibility cloaks aren't against the rules -- I suppose they're rare enough that no one ever got around to putting them on the list."* LoserSonOfLoserDad: Lesath Lestrange.* LovePotion: {{Discussed}} by Professor Quirrell in regards to witches using them to enchant and rape Muggle men (some wizards also do the same thing to Muggle women). It also alludes to how Voldemort was conceived, something few know about. [[spoiler: Quirrell has been possessed by him, however...]]* LowestCommonDenominator: In-universe. Harry suspects the Sorting Hat is being forced to fill up Slytherin with these people because its Death Eater reputation leads to anyone with a brain pleading with the hat not to be put into Slytherin.* MaidenNameDebate: Ch. 75 has this between [[spoiler:Harry and Hermione.]]* MagicAIsMagicA: As with the books, magic has consistent, if unknown, limitations. However, Harry wants to take it a step further (see SufficientlyAnalyzedMagic below).* TheMagicGoesAway: This is what Harry and Draco suspect might be happening. [[spoiler:It turns out to have been a mostly decoy theory Harry didn't have much faith in, but included to keep Draco interested in theories other than the Pureblood dilution one]].* {{Magitek}}: It's coming, in a big way. Also, [[spoiler: Voldemort turned the Pioneer plaque into a Horcrux]], so one could argue that it's already there.** The broomstick mated to the solid-fuel rocket booster that Harry uses to [[spoiler: break Bellatrix out of Azkaban]] definitely counts.* MathematiciansAnswer:-->"Can I ask you never to repeat what I’m about to say?" said Harry.\\"Absolutely," said Professor Quirrell. "Consider me asked."\\\\[[spoiler:'''Bellatrix:''']] My Lord, where are we?\\'''Harry:''' [[spoiler:''[posing as Voldemort]'']] We are on a broomstick.* MeaningfulName: Hermione tries to use it to justify her desire to be a heroine.-->"I'm quite certain," said Hermione. "Why, my name practically spells out 'heroine' except for the extra 'm', I never noticed that until today."* MeleeATrois: The intra-school army competition. An all-out war for a prize of a Quirrell wish. Although each year has its own set of three armies, you would be forgiven to forget this small tidbit, since the First year had evolved far beyond what anybody (except Quirrell) could dream of. The three sides are: [[http://dinosaurusgede.deviantart.com/gallery/27136676#/d2xlrgv Dragon army]], led by Draco Malfoy; [[http://dinosaurusgede.deviantart.com/gallery/27136676#/d2xdn9u Sunshine Regiment]], led by Hermione Granger; and the [[http://dinosaurusgede.deviantart.com/gallery/27136676#/d2xlq9v Chaos Legion]], led by Harry James Potter-Evans-Verres.* MentorOccupationalHazard: Lampshaded: Dumbledore [[GenreSavvy warns Harry]] that if he accepts Quirrell as a mentor, he'll surely end up losing him in some tragic fashion. (He becomes slightly more resigned to the idea when he remembers that Harry's going to [[DeadEndJob lose him anyway]].)* {{Metaphorgotten}}: On one occasion, Hermione feels so embarassed that she thinks steam should be coming out of her ears. Which in turn should be melting them off along with her flesh.* MexicanStandoff: In chapter 17 during broomstick flight class, Goyle stealing Neville's dropped Remembrall and hopping on a broomstick leads to the Hufflepuffs pointing wands at Goyle, Slytherins pointing wands at Hufflepuffs, and Gryffindors pointing wands at Slytherins. The Ravenclaws take out their wands too; it's not stated who ''they're'' pointing at, but it's presumably Slytherin.* AMillionIsAStatistic: Harry explains this to Hermione in chapter 48.* TheMindIsAPlaythingOfTheBody: After being in Animagus form, it takes a while to become interested in human food again.* MissedTheCall: Tracey Davis fears she was "supposed" to have kissed Harry.* MissingMom: Narcissa Malfoy, for rather unpleasant reasons. Also, Hermione's maternal grandmother was a witch who may have been killed by Grindelwald.* MisterSeahorse: Draco, according to the ''Quibbler''.* MisterXAndMisterY: Mr. Crabbe and Mr. Goyle.* MoralityChain: Hermione Granger is this for Harry. [[spoiler:Leads to High Octane Nightmare Fuel when she dies, as not only was he holding back almost entirely just because she thought he should, but he also seems willing do whatever it takes in order to get her back.]]* MoralMyopia: Quirrell claims ''everyone'' [[HumansAreBastards suffers from this]].* MostWritersAreAdults: One of the most persistent criticisms of the story is that a lot of the characters really don't feel like the prepubescent children they are. Given the story's premise of a rationalist Harry, and the fact that Yudkowsky deliberately boosted the intelligence, knowledge-base, and reasoning skills of most of the rest of the cast in order to avoid the MarySue effect, this was probably inevitable.** Also inevitable given the story revolves around 3 of the most intelligent students in the year. Other students tend to act more normally.* MouthfulOfPi: More true of Hermione than Harry.-->Harry knew pi out to 3.141592 because accuracy to one part in a million was enough for most practical purposes. Hermione knew one hundred digits of pi because that was how many digits had been printed in the back of her math textbook.* MugglesDoItBetter: A large part of the premise; Muggle ''technology'' isn't necessarily better than magic, but the wizarding world clearly could use a hearty dose of the scientific method.* MundaneUtility: Harry's always on the lookout for possibilities. Even he is aghast at the wizarding world's trivial uses of time machines... at first.* MysteriousPast: Dumbledore hires Quirrell without looking too deep into his history. Madam Bones thinks she has identified Quirrell as a hero figure from the previous war (not Tom Riddle; the author has changed his birth year to make this clear).* MythologyGag** Chapter 9: "Harry didn't see why Hermione had been so tense about it. In what weird alternative universe would that girl ''not'' be Sorted into Ravenclaw?"** Chapter 24: "[Dumbledore] said that as the Boy-Who-Lived I was doomed to have weird and dangerous adventures so I was safer if I got into them on purpose instead of waiting for them to happen by accident."** In Chapter 26, Quirrell is absolutely livid about [[Literature/HarryPotterAndTheHalfBloodPrince a 6th year Gryffindor who hit one of his 6th year Slytherins with a Dark curse, of which the former knew only how to cast it and that it was "for enemies".]]** Right after the incident between the 6th year Gryffindor and the 6th year Slytherin, Harry suggests to Quirrell that a safety lecture should be conducted for all Muggle-raised students, to tell them not to do certain things that wizard-raised children would not think of doing, including [[Literature/HarryPotterAndTheChamberOfSecrets brewing high-level potions without supervision in a bathroom]].** The Headline engineered by the Weasley twins stated that Harry was betrothed to Ginny.** "Molly Weasley against Bellatrix Black? Who does she even think she's kidding?"** Chapter 33 : "Yessss," hissed Harry, like the boy thought he was a parselmouth.** Chapter 63: While Moody was working with a particular potion called [[IdiotBall Bahl's Stupefaction]], he recalls an anecdote that should sound very familiar to those who read ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheGobletOfFire'':--->Moody had once seen an addicted Dark Wizard go to ridiculous lengths to get a victim to lay hands on a certain exact Portkey, instead of just having someone toss the target a trapped Knut on their next visit to town; and after going to all that work, the addict had gone to the ''further'' effort to lay a ''second Portus'', on the ''same Portkey'', which had, on a second touch, transported the victim back to safety. To this day, even taking the drug into account, Moody could not imagine [[WhatAnIdiot what could have possibly been going through the man's mind]] at the time he had cast the second Portus.** In Chapter 65:--->"Casst Killing Cursse?" Harry hissed in incredulity. "At me? Again? Ssecond time? Nobody will believe Dark Lord could posssibly be that sstupid -" (before the start of ''Literature/HarryPotterAndThePhilosophersStone'', Voldemort used the Killing Curse on Harry, which rebounded and destroyed Voldemort's body. In ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheGobletOfFire'', he tried it again, and it failed again. In ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheDeathlyHallows'', he tries a third and '''fourth''' times, with the fourth time rebounding and permanently killing him).** On a darker note in Chapter 70 Quirrell mentions how some witches give love potions to handsome Muggle men and then have sex with them, which is how Voldemort was conceived [[spoiler: who's possessing Quirrell at the time]].** Chapter 71 pokes fun at ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheChamberOfSecrets'':--->"You think Lord Slytherin would've put the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets in a bathroom?"** "So where's [[spoiler:the real Quirinus Quirrell]], eh? [[Literature/HarryPotterAndTheGobletOfFire Under an Imperius in the bottom of a trunk somewhere, while you take a hair now and then for your illegal Polyjuice?"]]** Chapter 77:---> "And for the lock, a ''Colloportus'' laid on an ordinary doorknob, cast so weakly that it could not have kept out Miss Granger on the day she entered Hogwarts."** Chapter 86:--->Professor [=McGonagall=] looked like she was in pain. "Alastor--but--will you teach the classes, if--"\\"Ha!" said Moody. "If I ever say yes to that question, check me for Polyjuice, because it's not me."* NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast: The four founders fought a battle against a man named ''Foul''.* NarrativeProfanityFilter:** Chapter 22:-->Then Harry Potter spat something that was probably an extremely bad word if you'd been raised by Muggles.** Rianne Felthorne gets a small one in chapter 71:-->She nodded, frightened and with a strange hope dawning in her heart (well, not exactly her heart).** Averted in chapter 102, where "too young to have sexual thoughts" is used instead of "innocent".* NeverLiveItDown: In-universe.--> "I was ''seven years old!'' How long are you going to keep on bringing that up?"\\"I know," said [Harry's] mother sympathetically, "you bite ''one'' maths teacher and they never let you forget it, do they?"* NewsTravelsFast: In chapter 46, for example, the Hogwarts grapevine is shown to be remarkably efficient. It helps that some people have Time Turners (see MundaneUtility).* NoExceptYes: "World domination is such an ugly phrase. I prefer to call it world optimization."* NoodleIncident: Several.** The "Incident at the Potions Shop".** The "Incident with the Science Fair Project".** Others include Harry's [[ChronicPetKiller pet rock]].** The prank involving Kevin Entwhistle's cat.** Somehow, the Weasley twins were able to falsify a betrothal contract between Harry and Ginny and get it published in the ''Daily Prophet''. They did this by ''somehow'' faking a lot of evidence that most would believe near-impossible to fake (and then changing it back to normal after the fact). The only thing we know about ''how'' they did it was that it was on a budget of ''forty Galleons.'' Even the ''Weasley'' twins don't know how they did it because they also got themselves [[LaserGuidedAmnesia Obliviated]] after the deed was done.--->'''Quirrell:''' Such a thing ''might'' be possible with forty ''thousand'' Galleons...*** It's later strongly implied that [[spoiler: someone Memory-Charmed the reporter to make her believe she had seen the evidence, and then left the twins with no memory so that they couldn't testify in court]].* NoOneGetsLeftBehind: Subverted in a thoroughly justified fashion in chapter 41, which incident is later [[DiscussedTrope discussed]] with some fascination:-->"You can't ''do'' that!"\\"I don't see why."\\"That's because you don't have the tiniest smidgin of romance in you."* NoOntologicalInertia: Harry's first Transfiguration class asserts that transfigurations are not permanent and need periodic maintenance to keep them from reversing themselves. [=McGonagall=] gives the example of someone drinking a block of wood transfigured into a glass of water and asks the class to consider the consequences given the above.** Most other forms of magic work on this principle as well. The best way shown to break shield charms is to keeping hitting the shield till the user collapses from exhaustion, and the shield breaks.** Harry speculates whether this works on the Dark Mark.* NoPlansNoPrototypeNoBackup: Enforced by the Interdict of Merlin, which prevents the passage of powerful spells through text. They can only be spread directly by one wizard to another, and any notes or written instructions will be magically rendered impossible to read by anyone else. Harry is pretty sure this is why modern wizards are weaker than their predecessors-instead of building on previous knowledge it is slowly being lost. Quirrell hypothesizes that [[spoiler:averting this is the true reason for the Chamber of Secrets and the Basilisk--a centuries-old monster who could only speak with a Slytherin Parselmouth would be the best way to pass Salazar's magic on to an heir]].* NoteToSelf** Harry bites his lip hard whenever he thinks someone might be about to wipe his memory, so that a minute later when his lip hurts inexplicably, he'll know that he's been made to forget ''something'', even if he doesn't know what.** See also "Recognition Code 927, I am a potato" and various uses of the Time Turner.* NotThatTheresAnythingWrongWithThat: Harry's reaction after he briefly imagined... An ''odd'' pairing:--> '''Harry''': "Snape and Dumbledore!?". ''Then Harry heard the words that had just come out of his mouth, and hastily added,'' "Not that there's anything wrong with that -"* NoTrueScotsman: In-universe. Harry tries to convince the Sorting Hat that he's not like the other potential Dark Lords the hat has met:-->'''Harry:''' Just what kind of statistical summary do your "feelings" come from, anyway! Do they take into account that I come from an Enlightenment culture, or were these other potential Dark Lords the children of spoiled Dark Age nobility, who didn't know doodly-squat about the historical lessons of how Lenin and Hitler actually turned out, or about the evolutionary psychology of self-delusion, or the value of self-awareness and rationality, or--\\'''Hat:''' No, of course they were not in this new reference class which you have [[MovingTheGoalposts just now constructed]] in such a way [[OverlyNarrowSuperlative as to contain only yourself.]]* NotSoDifferent:** Harry and Snape, surprisingly. Although Snape doesn't have Harry's scientific background, his Muggle uprising gives him a perspective on the wizarding world similar to Harry's own. Most obvious when they are trying to prevent [[spoiler:Hermione's]] trial, and Harry keeps getting dumbstruck at the ridiculously lax and corrupt legal procedures. Snape cynically notes that they're not in Muggle Britain anymore.** Dumbledore knows that he was NotSoDifferent from Grindelwald and believes ([[spoiler:correctly]]) that Harry is NotSoDifferent from Voldemort, though he's not sure how since he was never able to understand Voldemort anyway.** Quirrell believes that the path being a hero and of being a dark wizard are essentially similar and followed by similar people. [[spoiler: [[FallenHero He'd know.]]]]* ObfuscatingInsanity** Dumbledore is widely believed to be using this. It's effective nevertheless, as it not only gives him an excuse to do whatever he wants, it's also impossible to tell the difference between when he's just keeping up the act and when he's executing some brilliant, secret plan right under your nose.** Notably, Quirrell at least believes that Dumbledore ''used'' to be using this, but proved so good at affecting false insanity that no one but Quirrell (and possibly [=McGonagall=]) noticed when it became senility pretending to be cunning pretending to be insanity.** Recently, Harry has begun to suspect that Dumbledore really is sane (albeit extremely depressed and just waiting to die), ''pretending'' to be senile pretending to be cunning pretending to be insane.** Also, Harry can't decide whether Luna is using this or not. Though he still hasn't actually met her, he just can't imagine anyone actually believes the kind of things she writes.* ObviouslyEvil: Penelope Clearwater seems to think Professor Quirrell is this:-->"My goodness," said Penelope Clearwater. "I think that's the most overtly evil Defense Professor we've ever had."* OffscreenMomentOfAwesome: The Weasley Twins fake for the benefit of Rita Skeeter a prophecy, a betrothal contract, a Gringotts seal, and a session of the Wizengamot for a grand total of 40 galleons. How they do it isn't explained until 50+ chapters later.* OhCrap: Harry often ends up inducing this in himself and others.* OldMaster: Quirell recounts how he learned from one in chapter 19. The character is also implied to fulfill the MagicalAsian trope, which is ironic as he's noted to have been a Muggle in the literal sense.* OmniscientMoralityLicense: Dumbledore apologizes in advance for this.* OneParagraphChapter: Chapter 99 is one sentence long.* OneSteveLimit: In chapter 69, Michael Hopkins says, "there aren't any other Mikes in all of Hufflepuff this year, [[LampshadeHanging would you believe it?]]" The irony being that he's a subversion for this fanfic, as it already contains Professor Michael Verres-Evans ''and'' Michael Corner.* OnlySaneMan: The entire premise. (It's worth pointing out that the author views ''himself'' [[http://lesswrong.com/lw/1mc/normal_cryonics/ in that way]].) As the story progresses, though, it's increasingly difficult to tell who's the sane one...* OnlySmartPeopleMayPass: Harry guesses that the challenge of finding Platform Nine and Three-Quarters might be meant as an I.Q. test (and when you [[FridgeLogic think about it]], it's [[TrialAndErrorGameplay kind of ridiculous]] that in canon there doesn't seem to be any good reason why Muggleborn students aren't actually told how to find it).** Well, we don't actually ''know'' that Muggleborn students aren't told how to find it in canon. All we know is that Hagrid didn't tell Harry and it's easy to assume that he was supposed to, but forgot.* OOCIsSeriousBusiness: When Dumbledore asks Harry what Quirrell could be plotting that requires him to bring a Dementor into the castle, Harry argues that this is completely in-character for him, and naturally, [[InvertedTrope in-character is business as usual]]. But he realizes that something is wrong anyway, because even coming out of his own mouth it's a SuspiciouslySpecificDenial.* OpenSecret: Everyone in Ravenclaw House claims to have "heard" that Dumbledore is a [[TheChessmaster secret mastermind]] whose apparent insanity is just a [[ObfuscatingInsanity cover]].-->"Brilliant!" Harry whispered. "If everyone knows, [[SarcasmMode no one will suspect it's a secret]]!"* OpposingCombatPhilosophies: Draco, at least in the beginning, uses the command philosophy of [[http://www.thornley.net/~thornley/david/military/strategy/comrec.html command push]] (all orders come from the top, and subordinates are trained to carry out orders efficiently without questioning them, but this structure tends to be inflexible if the commander is out of touch with the situation). In contrast, Harry uses some elements of recon pull (subordinates are allowed to use initiative to do what they think is right for their situation, and the commander acts as coordinator who concentrates on the big picture).* OrwellianRetcon: Several of the chapters were revised after they were posted. (The changes are generally minor, though.)* OutgrownSuchSillySuperstitions:** In chapter 39, Harry is surprised and disappointed to discover wizards (or at least Dumbledore) haven't done this. However, chapter 61 does indicate that the concept of God is unique to "Muggle religion", so apparently wizards have outgrown that much.* OvershadowedByAwesome: Hermione has this problem with regards to Harry.[[/folder]]

[[folder: P-T]]* PapaWolf: Lucius Malfoy* ParodyEpisode: Omake files.* ParrotPetPosition: Dumbledore frequently carries Fawkes ThePhoenix on his shoulder. Once, he has both Fawkes ''and'' his Phoenix Patronus on his shoulders. Then, [[spoiler:after one time when Fawkes gets especially upset at Dumbledore, the phoenix spends an entire evening riding on Harry Potter's shoulder]]. It is later discussed whether having a phoenix on your shoulder is a sign you're a "good" person or not.* ThePasswordIsAlwaysSwordfish: In chapter 51, Harry uses the password "Sword fish [[LordOfTheRings melon friend]]". Though this is also possibly an inversion, as absent the shout-outs, this is an example of a very strong password generation algorithm.* PeacefulInDeath: During the underwater battle, Harry notes that Hermione looks rather peaceful after he shot her.* PeggySue: Mocked in chapter 29:-->... they dragged poor Bill Weasley off to St. Mungo's and it turned out to be a pretty standard schizophrenic break... Guy was convinced he was ninety-seven years old and had died and gone back in time.* ThePerfectCrime: [[spoiler: Almost pulled off]] in chapter 53.* PhotographicMemory: While Hermione doesn't have true photographic memory, she can remember exactly anything she reads five times. This is arguably better, since she actually learns it instead of having to mentally read it to get what she wants. She wishes it were photographic, though.* PieInTheFace: Wielded by an invisible hand, no less.* PlayingPossum: Sunshine's tactic for the first battle.* {{Portmanteau}}: Draco's [[EndersGame Dragon Army]] + Hermione's Sunshine Regiment = "[[FandomNod Dra]][[PortmanteauCoupleName mione's]] Sungon Argiment."* PopCulturedBadass: Harry has read a lot of literature and routinely quotes from fantasy and sci-fi. Dumbledore follows suit, and even others with no interest in muggle literature (like Malfoy or Quirrel) continually reference the [[AuthorAppeal author's preferred books and anime.]]* ThePowerOfHate: As in canon, the power behind the ''Ava Kadava'' curse. You have to really ''want'' your target dead. The thing is, using it multiple times in a single fight against the same opponent is excessively difficult: You have to want to slit their throat, then strangle the corpse, etc etc. "Very few can hate enough to kill someone five times. They would get bored." This is one of the reasons Voldemort was so terrifying, in that he used the Killing Curse as much as he wanted. Quirrel mentions that [[ShoutOut a witch called]] [[Manga/MahouSenseiNegima the Dark Evangel]] once used the Killing Curse ''twelve'' times in a single fight, and asks Harry if he can figure out the secret to the true form of the curse, like he figured out the true form of the Patronus Charm. [[spoiler:It's not hate, it's ''apathy''. Hate implies a kind of respect; you care about someone enough to want them dead. To cast the true Killing Curse, you have to completely and utterly not care about the life of your opponent. You're not killing them. You're just not bothering to allow them to live any more]].* ThePowerOfFriendship** Roundly mocked:--->'''Dumbledore:''' And ''here'' I was expecting you might try to redeem the heir of Malfoy by, say, ''showing him true friendship and kindness.''\\'''Harry:''' Ha! Yeah, like ''that'' would have worked.** Harry's plan to [[HeelFaceTurn redeem Draco]] involves overcoming his prejudices using logic and manipulating Draco into situations where he will see the ridiculousness of his preconceptions, but the friendship thing actually seems to be [[DoubleSubversion pretty effective]] (and the part that seems to impress -- and frighten -- Lucius the most).** Simultaneously, Fred and George are trying to redeem Harry the same way, although they're not sure what side he's actually on.* ProphecyTwist: This trope apparently has the strength of a law of physics in the Wizarding world, but we don't know what they are yet. Several characters have plans laid against what they expect it will be for the one from canon (for instance Dumbeldore is arranging for Harry to be ready and surrounded by allies if it turns out the Dark Lord mentioned is Dumbeldore turned evil).* ProudToBeAGeek: Harry sprinkles science fiction and fantasy references liberally. None of his Muggleborn peers seem embarrassed to admit they understand them as well, in particular [[StarWars lightsabers and "Red Five, standing by."]]* RageAgainstTheMentor: Harry to both Dumbledore and Quirrell.* RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil: Possibly averted in the wizarding world; Draco is puzzled when Harry tells him that "in Muggle Britain there's a hell of a political difference between getting away with murder and getting away with raping a little girl." May just be skewed perception of Draco, as it's easier for him to get away with rape than murder (Obliviate the rape victim, not much you can do about the murder victim), so to his young mind it seems like murder is a bigger deal (though still something the "cool kids" do). It's actually entirely possible that a society with such easy removal of terrible memories and magic psychological healing would actually see rape as a much lesser crime, as it may leave the victim much less harmed in a much shorter time than it does in real life where magic cannot heal the damage.** Murder is considered a worse crime than rape in the Muggle world, it's just that there are a hundred and one good reasons to murder someone and very few good reasons to rape someone, so rape tends to be much more of a MoralEventHorizon. Also, for a child who barely knows anything about sex or trauma, rape does seem to be a much less severe crime than murder on first hearing about it (think of Scout's reaction in Literature/ToKillAMockingbird).** Actually, while rape is often not considered as serious a crime, raping a child is. Child molesters are generally considered the most evil of criminals. Even people who have committed murder aren't targeted the same way or put on offender lists. Putting a child molester in with the general prison population is generally an unofficial death sentence, at least in fiction.* RealisticDictionIsUnrealistic: Lampshaded.-->It was also at this point that Hermione realised the other thing - well, one of the things - which was odd about [Harry]. Apparently people who were ''in'' books actually ''sounded'' like a book when they talked. This was quite the surprising discovery.* RealityIsUnrealistic: Harry's inner Ravenclaw wonders "if a real healer would seem more fake than an actor told to play one?"* ReasonableAuthorityFigure: Professor [=McGonagall=]. Also becoming something of a surrogate mother-figure to Harry.* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: Harry's Sorting consists of the Sorting Hat directing one of these at him.* [[RecklessGunUsage Reckless Wand Usage]]: Harry points a wand at someone [[ChildrenAreInnocent accidentally-on-purpose]] when asked to hand it over.* RecursiveFanfiction: The story has already inspired some.* ReferenceOverdosed: Plenty of [[ShoutOut shout-outs]] in the pre-chapter disclaimers... and a few more subtle ones in the story as well. They have [[ShoutOut/HarryPotterAndTheMethodsOfRationality their own subpage]].* ReformedRakes: After seeing him demented, people believe Harry has been hiding his urge to kill pointless people (i.e., everyone). Hermione brings him back, and so all the Ravenclaw girls expect her to be the one who saves him.* RequiredSecondaryPowers: In order to survive things like falling on their head when dueling, flying, levitating, playing Quidditch, etc., wizards and witches are said to be more durable than Muggles.* RescueArc: Two so far: one for [[spoiler:Bellatrix Black and, when the plan goes wrong, Professor Quirrell]]; another for Hermione. However, Harry is too much of a lone wolf to gather TrueCompanions for these quests, though he does accept help from teachers.* ResetButton** Snape takes a huge number of points from Harry; Quirrell finds an excuse to give them right back. Notable in that Harry isn't happy with this; he feels he really did screw up in Snape's class and shouldn't be allowed to just [[KarmaHoudini dodge the consequences]].** Quirrell does it again in Chapter 75, this time for Hermione, and in front of Snape no less.* RetiredMonster: Quirrell shows a startling commitment to actually teaching (as opposed to the canon version who simply wanted the Stone so he could get back in the game). Though it would follow with the pattern of the book that this is just another {{plan}}, there also seems to be a distinct possibility that he has given up on his ambitions, and has instead resigned himself to teaching his philosophy to the youth (especially Harry Potter, who he is overtly offering to help become the next Dark Lord). The upshot is that the motivation to make others think the same way you do is far more realistic than wanting to take over the world, and this fic is intent on adding as much realism as possible.** His various side activities include [[spoiler:creating a Horcrux that has long left the Solar System, breaking Bellatrix Black out of Azkaban and possibly framing Hermione for attempted murder.]]* {{Retirony}}: [[spoiler:Subverted in chapter 54]], with a FatalFamilyPhoto mentioned as well.* RetroactivePrecognition: Used to spread gossip and knowledge of some upcoming S.P.H.E.W. fights.* RetroactivePreparation: From the moment he gets the Time-Turner, Harry can't resist exploiting this trick. Which is why [[spoiler:Professor [=McGonagall=] puts a lock on it shortly afterwards]]. And while it's against all the rules to use it for general purposes, [=McGonagall=] does tell him that this is a better way to get out of a locked room than traveling back in time to before it was locked.* ReversePsychology** Dumbledore tries this on Harry:--->'''Dumbledore:''' You are ''not'' to attempt the forbidden door on the third-floor corridor. There's no possible way you could get through all the traps, and I wouldn't want to hear that you'd been hurt trying. Why, I doubt that you could so much as open the first door, since it's locked and you don't know the spell ''Alohomora''.** He also succeeds in using it on Hermione in "Self Actualization". While at first it seemed as if things would have gone the same way whether or not he had meddled, because of it Hermione gets a small group of fellow witches who also want to be heroes. [[GoneHorriblyRight Which wasn't actually part of Dumbledore's plan]].* RightForTheWrongReasons: Quirrell guesses what memory Harry relived before the Dementor, but that's not why he can now see [[spoiler:Thestrals]].* RomanticismVersusEnlightenment: Dumbledore's conversations with Harry often seem to invoke this conflict. Essentially, the whole premise of the story is putting an Enlightenment hero in Rowling's Romanticist PotterVerse.* RoofHopping: Briefly in chapter 41.* RousingSpeech: Parodied in Chapter 30, in which Harry gives a particularly silly one.* RulesLawyer: This trope is why the first few Three Armies battles don't have an explicit win condition--it'd be way too easy for Harry to game the rules somehow. Later on, the school administration requests that Quirrell add a win condition, and of course, Harry games the rules.* RunningGag** Callbacks to the turning-into-a-cat incident.** Dumbledore once set fire to a chicken.** Always more Hufflepuff bones to sharpen.** The ease of the third floor corridor dungeon. By Christmas everyone in Gryffindor has run it at least once.** In the early story the Dark Mark is a running reference to Voldemort being a complete idiot. Becomes HarsherInHindsight when it turns out that unlike the canon version, this Voldemort is way smarter than that.* SadisticChoice: Chapter 12 mentions offhand that Harry sees ordering in a restaurant as one of these. "Find out about only one of the mysteries on this list, [[EvilLaugh ha ha ha]]!"* SaidBookism--> "Why?" The centaur intoned.* SarcasticConfession:** If it ''is'' true, then this confession of Harry's qualifies:--->'''Lucius Malfoy:''' What was your purpose in maneuvering your good friend, my son, into a public alliance with that girl?\\'''Harry:''' Oh, that's obvious, right? Draco's working with Granger will make him realize that Muggleborns are human after all. [[EvilLaugh Bwa. Ha. Ha.]]** Similarly, Quirrell in chapter 79, when he [[spoiler:reacts to being accused of keeping "the real Quirrell" captive for polyjuice ingredients]], may or may not be telling the truth.* SatelliteCharacter: Hermione eventually [[GenreSavvy sees]] that's she's becoming this in-universe, and struggles against it.-->If you got too close to the Boy-Who-Lived, you became part of his story. You didn't get your own.* ScaledUp: Quirrell is an unregistered snake Animagus.-->'''Snake!Quirrell:''' [[EvilOverlordList Thirty-sseven ruless, number thirty-four]]: Become Animaguss. All ssensible people do, if can. [[HumansAreMorons Thuss, very rare.]]** Ironically, the actual Evil Overlord List's Rule 34 ([[IThoughtItMeant no, not]] [[RuleThirtyFour that one]]) is "I will not turn into a snake. It never helps."* ScareEmStraight: The whole point of [=McGonagall=]'s first class* SchmuckBait** The third-floor corridor.--->Was Dumbledore's forbidden corridor meant to lure people so stupid that they didn't notice the security was worse than what Draco Malfoy could put on it?** Later it's mentioned that [[TakeThat all the Gryffindors]] have tried it.* ScienceDestroysMagic: A theory raised as to why none of the modern wizards are as good as the ancient ones. [[spoiler:Turns out to not be true.]]* ScrewTheRulesIHaveConnections: Draco is confident not only that anyone from his family could legally get away with rape, but that the victim would have to pay them reparations for having dared to accuse them.** Judging by how lopsided the vote is when Lucius Malfoy calls for [[spoiler:Hermione's]] head at a Wizengamot meeting, Draco's probably right too.* ScrewTheRulesImDoingWhatsRight: Harry has no qualms at all about breaking the law if he thinks it would serve the greater good.* SecretIdentity** Sirius Black is really Peter Pettigrew, according to the ''Quibbler''.--->"They've even got a picture of the two of them together, [[YouFailLogicForever so we know who it is that's secretly the same person]]."** In canon, the ''Quibbler'' was correct about Sirius being innocent. They were completely bonkers in their "proof", but their ''premise'' was correct. Could be the same thing here.** One of the prisoners in Azkaban can be heard repeating, [[spoiler:"I'm not serious, I'm not serious, I'm not serious"]] over and over. Just try to guess what he IS, instead.* [[SecretPath Secret Passages]]: Hogwarts seems to be full of them, though a slight subversion in that everyone knows about all of them.** Of particular note: the not-so-secret staircase from Ravenclaw Tower to the Slytherin Dungeons, which only witches can use. Hermione wonders why witches in particular would need a fast route between the two.*** Consider that even Lucius Malfoy thinks that Ravenclaw is an acceptable House for Draco to find a wife in. Then consider that at least in canon, girls can go into the boys' dorms but not vice versa.* SeeWater: Averted: "even with the potion you couldn't see very far in the darkness of the lake."* SelectiveObliviousness: Dumbledore and [=McGonagall=] ''will not'' hear any "niggling complaints" against Quirrell... at least not until he's seen the students through their [[SkewedPriorities end-of-year exams]].* SelfFulfillingProphecy: Part of the reason Slytherin House has gone downhill: once your House develops a reputation for being full of bigots, only bigots and people who don't mind bigotry are willing to be sorted there if they have any other options.* SelfMadeOrphan: This aspect of Voldemort's backstory is hinted to have been carried over from canon on a couple of occasions.* SelfPlagiarism: The story repackages some of the [[AnAesop content]] of Eliezer's essays and blog posts in a more light-hearted format. (Links to said essays/blog posts can be found in the "[=LessWrong=]" author profile.) A lot of the quotable things said by Harry James Potter-Evans-Verres in the story were said by Eliezer Yudkowsky as Eliezer Yudkowsky first.* SequenceBreaking: The way Rational!Harry handles things prevents a lot of canonical trip-ups, but also give him some weird looks when he's being particularly GenreSavvy.* SexSlave: Voldemort seems to have made Bellatrix into one for the Lestrange brothers. * ShapedLikeItself: "First years should note that the forest on the grounds is forbidden to all pupils. That is why it is called the Forbidden Forest. If it were permitted it would be called the Permitted Forest."* SheIsNotMyGirlfriend:** Harry about Hermione in chapter 75.--->'''Harry:''' And ''[[PunctuatedForEmphasis I. Am. Not. Her. Boyfriend!]]''** Hermione followed suit a few lines later.* ShipperOnDeck** Daphne Greengrass ships Harry×Hermione.** And either [[YaoiFangirl Luna]] or [[CloudCuckooLander Xeno]] seems to ship [[HoYay Harry×Draco]].** Later, the following conversation about Malfoy, Harry and Hermione occurs:--->"It's so sad," said Sherice Ngaserin, who actually had tears in her eyes. "They were just--they were just so obviously meant to be together!"\\"You mean Potter and Malfoy?" said a second-year named Colleen Johnson. "I know--[[FeudingFamilies their families]] hated each other so much, there's [[StarCrossedLovers no way they couldn't fall in love]]--"\\"No, [[OneTrueThreesome I mean all three of them]]," said Sherice.* ShoutOut: [[ShoutOut/HarryPotterAndTheMethodsOfRationality Many of them.]]* ShownTheirWork: The author is a professional researcher. What did you expect?* SiblingYinYang: Padma Patil tries a little too hard to be different than her twin.* SingleLineOfDescent: As in the original work, Harry's ownership of the invisibility cloak. Debatable whether there can be more than one Heir of Slytherin at a time.* SkewedPriorities:** Almost all of the wizarding world, which is canon, but also Harry at times:--->'''Harry:''' What could possibly be more important than plants turning out to be sentient?** In the long term, [[WhatMeasureIsANonHuman plants being sentient]] should be extremely high on any priority list. In the immediate term, and in the scope of an 11 year old boy learning magic and getting involved in lots of things 11 year old boys shouldn't get involved in? [[DontExplainTheJoke Not so much]].* SlidingScaleOfIdealismVersusCynicism: The story features characters with extremely different views on life, Professor Quirrell being probably the most cynical, Hermione and Dumbledore being idealistic. Harry falls somewhere in between and at the moment seems to be on his way to becoming a KnightInSourArmor. As a whole, the fanfic is more cynical than the original books, but still manages to be rather idealistic.* SlidingScaleOfUnavoidableVersusUnforgivable: Dumbledore has accepted that IDidWhatIHadToDo. Harry is still trying to figure out where to draw the MoralEventHorizon.* SlipperySkid: Transfigured bearing balls in the upper level battle. Ouch.* SlouchOfVillainy: Averted. All the evil characters have carefully maintained images. Most Slytherin aim for a noble, dignified composure that would crush their enemies if necessary, with minions as part of that costume. When Quirrell goes into zombie mode, he doesn't do it to look cool, and most people write it off as something to do with the curse on the Defense position.* SmallNameBigEgo: During the first 34 chapters it was implied that Lucius is one of the best Masterminds of Magical Britain, an excellent manipulator and a "beautiful killing machine" then [[spoiler: Professor Quirrell shot it to hell in one sentence in front of hundreds, stating that Lucius was incompetent enough to let the Death Eaters implode at the brink of victory and had to return with his tail between his legs]]. [[KickTheSonOfABitch That had to hurt]].* SmugSuper: Harry has the attitude down pat.-->'''Hermione:''' I'm getting tired of hearing people talk about the Boy-Who-Lived like you're -- like you're some kind of god or something.\\'''Harry:''' Same here, I must say. It's sad how people keep underestimating me.* SnowballLie: Discussed in Chapter 65, appropriately titled "Contagious Lies". Of particular note is that Harry thinks this is the primary reason having a phoenix is not considered a sign of being Good -- it benefits those without phoenixes, so they say whatever it takes to keep people from believing a phoenix's decision is made with sound reasoning.* SpinOff: Another writer on the "Less Wrong" community blog has done something similar to the ''Literature/{{Twilight}}'' series with her story ''Fanfic/{{Luminosity}}''.* SpitTake** The recurring Comed-Tea, which is advertised to cause ''something'' SpitTake-worthy to happen within moments of drinking it. Harry spends a brief but consequential period of time trying to game the rules of the drink to achieve omnipotence before realizing how it ''actually'' works. [[spoiler:It's at least one part Divination, and gives the would-be drinker a sudden urge to drink Comed-Tea prior to ridiculous events -- Harry resists the urge at one point and promptly chokes on his own spit a moment later.]] He doesn't know for ''sure'' that this is how it works, as he's been too busy to test it, but it seems likely.** Harry also gets a coughing fit while trying to drink water when Prof. Quirrell guess he's a Parselmouth. And then ''again'' when [[spoiler:the latter reveals that the Sorting Hat's secret message was likely in Parseltongue]].* SplitPersonality: Harry thinks of his Dark side as something like a split personality, one that he can choose to allow to 'take over' temporarily but can't risk allowing to fully control him** Harry also has 'personalities' representing each of the four houses speak up to make suggestions to him, though these are treated as less 'crazy' and more just an active imagination assigning titles to the thoughts in his own head. Outside of Slytherin giving voice to the temptations he is trying to resist at times these 'personalities' mostly show up to add ammused comments about his current troubles. See ImAHumanitarian above for an example* SplitPersonalityMerge: Harry does this with his dark side [[spoiler:to remove his vulnerability to Dementors]].* ASpotOfTea: Quirrell likes ''expensive'' tea. Harry doesn't see the difference and wonders if it is a means of messing with people who feel they should appreciate it.** During the Taboo Tradeoffs battle Amelia Bones summons a cup of tea out of nowhere so she can sip from it before giving her snarky commentary on events.* SpringtimeForHitler: In Quirrell's backstory. [[spoiler: "Lord Voldemort" was supposed to be practice for playing the villain that "David Monroe" would become a hero for defeating, but the government of Magical Britain was so incompetent that it couldn't even shut down a group of morons in masks.]]* StabTheSky: Neville in Chapter 30.* StableTimeLoop: Time-Turners are ''only'' capable of producing these, in up-to-six hour increments every twenty-four hours. When Harry tries to test his in a way that would cause a TemporalParadox (see TrickedOutTime below), he receives a resounding "'''DO NOT MESS WITH TIME'''" from his future self for his troubles. Dumbledore later encounters a similar situation under different circumstances (with a simpler but no less poignant "'''NO'''"), but he knows through experience not to fiddle with paradoxes. * TheStarscream: Draco, to Harry, in a Russian Nesting Doll of {{plan}}ning.* StartOfDarkness: [[ManipulativeBastard Quirrell]] answers Dumbledore's [[ReversePsychology manipulation of Hermione]] by doing the same to Tracey Davis, and just might have turned her into [[{{Pride}} Daphne Greengrass']] Slytherin [[RedOniBlueOni complement]] in Chapter 70.* TheStationsOfTheCanon: The early chapters contain the requisite steps of Hogwarts Letter, Diagon Alley, Hogwarts Express, and Sorting Ceremory. The parts which would be little to no different from the canon are simply skipped over. For example, the story goes straight from the Hogwarts Express to the Sorting Ceremory, skipping over the first years getting off the train and riding the boats up to the castle.** In the later chapters, the troll makes an appearance, although not at Halloween [[spoiler:and with far worse consequences than the original]]. A little after that, the detention to find out who is attacking unicorns in the forbidden forest also takes place. Draco is the only one of the four involved in both versions but Harry still ends up alone with a centaur.* StayInTheKitchen: The founding members of S.P.H.E.W. take offense that women are being dissuaded or prevented either by Dumbledore or gender roles within the wizarding world from becoming heroines, seeing as heroes and Dark Lords are overwhelmingly male. Dumbledore sets the record straight that he neither encourages or discourages any student, male or female, from the call.* StealthHiBye: Harry does this to the Gryffindor bullies in chapter 27.* StealthPun: After [[spoiler: Harry destroys a Dementor]], Professor Quirrel, asked what they should say to the Ministry, says: "Tell them I ate it." Since [[spoiler:the Dementors represent death]], he says that he is [[spoiler:a Death Eater.]]* StrawmanPolitical: Massively averted with [[spoiler: Quirrell]]. While the author's notes stress that he is evil, he's allowed to make strong arguments in favor of dictatorship and against democracy.* SufficientlyAnalyzedMagic: Harry Potter is hoping to achieve this. So far, he hasn't had much success.** He has been able to create partial transfigurations [[spoiler: which he uses to kill a troll by transfiguring part of its brain into acid]], and an improved form of the Patronus by applying various type of analysis to the issues. * SummoningRitual: [[spoiler:Harry has Tracey do a mock version of this in chapter 74, which [[GoneHorriblyRight goes a bit too right]]. Shouldn't he know better from the Abracadabra stunt?]]* SuperpoweredEvilSide: Harry suspects he has one; this is where his [[GenreSavvy Genre Savviness]] fails him however, because it turns out to be just evil (or, at least, dark), but not even remotely superpowered. It is, however, more skilled than him at certain kinds of problem solving, and he repeatedly invokes it to give him the courage to go through with a plan that involves doing something distasteful (like blackmail).* SurroundedByIdiots: Goes without saying. Special mention goes to Amelia Bones, who is not only afflicted with this trope, but is ''[[GenreSavvy fully aware of it.]]'' As a result, she personally oversees her subordinates as a preventive measure.* TakeAThirdOption** [[spoiler:Blaise Zabini]] at the end of the pre-Christmas battle, although it's technically a [[spoiler:fourth option]]. He also gleefully refuses to take sides within his House after [[spoiler:Bellatrix is freed.]] He has a reputation to keep, after all.** In general, Harry also doesn't agree with the Order of the Phoenix, the Ministry of Magic, or the Death Eater party lines either.** And, in an earlier chapter, Harry was commanded by Quirrell to either hex a fellow student (bad), or lose House Points (bad). He hexed himself.*** [[spoiler:Whereupon Quirrell deducted points ''anyways'', for being clever instead of actually learning.]]* TakeMyHand: In chapter 41, shortly followed by an IWillOnlySlowYouDown.* TakeThat** The story likes to poke fun at some absurdities of the original books (see MythologyGag), and notably some of the most stupid moments of both Harry and Voldemort.** Almost all of ch. 64's {{Omake}}, but ones for ''Literature/TheLionTheWitchAndTheWardrobe'' and ''Literature/{{Twilight}}'' in particular. The one for ''{{WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic}}'' has a jab at mainstream academia: "Everyone knew that no matter how honest, investigating, skeptical, creative, analytic, or curious you were, what really made your work Science was when you published your results in a prestigious journal. Everyone knew that..."** In chapter 97, at journalists:---> "I wouldn't think a newspaper would be able to report on a concept like 'Either X or Y must be true, but we don't know which.' I would only expect journalists to report stories consisting of series of atomic propositions, like 'X is true', 'Y is false', or 'X is true and Y is false'. Not more complex logical connectors like 'If X is true then Y is true, but we don't know whether X is true'."* TakeThatAudience:** Many of his fans had suggested or asked if the story would be Harry×Draco because of the ''Quibbler'' headline, so Harry apologizing to Hermione by being dangled off the roof by Draco just as Hermione had done the previous day seems like this.** Also, in that same chapter, Harry figures out that Black probably killed Pettigrew because [[spoiler: Black and Pettigrew were at one point lovers]]. Seems like a take that at [[spoiler: {{Yaoi Fangirl}}s]] because [[spoiler:Peter Pettigrew hardly gets shipped.]]** In chapter 91, the readers who shipped Harry/Hermione got one:---> '''Harry:''' "I didn't like Hermione in that way. Why does everyone keep thinking it has to be about that? It's disrespectful to her, to think someone could only like her in that way."** In chapter 109:---> '''Professor Quirrell:''' “Only a gibbering dullard with a skull full of flaming monkey vomit would think [that Harry is just an ordinary eleven-year-old].”* TeachersPet: Harry to Quirrell, although nobody seems to actually hate him for it, though Hermione is afraid Quirrell will lead Harry astray.* TellMeAboutMyFather: Harry asks Lupin about his birth parents the very first time he meets him.* TemptingFate: Happens a fair amount.** For example, toward the end of chapter 47 when Draco says, "I don't want any more surprises today."** [[DiscussedTrope Discussed]] in chapter 57, after Dumbledore declares himself to be invincible:--->"He can get away with it," Isabel whispered back to her, "he's Dumbledore, not even Fate takes him seriously anymore."* ThatMakesMeFeelAngry: Harry is able to get away with this when Dumbledore is ''expecting'' him to be angry and doesn't seem likely to question it:-->"Yes, I'm very angry!" said Harry. "Grrr!"\\Harry's Internal Critic promptly awarded him the All-Time Award for the [[WorstWhateverEver Worst Acting in the History of Ever]].* ThereAreTwoKindsOfPeopleInTheWorld: ** Hufflepuff or Slytherin, according to Lucius.** According to Moody, there are three kinds of Dark Wizards in the world: the kind with [[SecretPublicIdentity one name]], the kind with [[SecretIdentity two names]], and the kind that [[IHaveManyNames change names like ordinary people change clothes]].* TheyCalledMeMad: One of the official mottos of the Chaos Legion is revealed in chapter 70 to be "We'll show them! We'll show them all! EvilLaughter".* ThinkNothingOfIt: Harry references this trope when asking not to be rewarded for reporting the extra spell on the Sorting Hat.* ThinksLikeARomanceNovel: A lot of the Hogwart girls are very guilty of this. Even Hermione, a bit, at the beginning, though she gets over it.* ThisIsGonnaSuck: Invoked word-for-word during Harry's occlumency lesson in chapter 27.* ThisMeansWar: In chapter 15, Harry says the Bugs Bunny line to Hermione after she does better than he does during class.* ThisIsReality: In chapter 94, Harry notes to himself that in real life, the enemy would think of himself as the main character, not as the villain.* ThoseTwoBadGuys: Crabbe & Goyle. It takes Draco a good chunk of the year to get them to stop playing it as a comedy routine complete with "thug" voices.** This is not at all helped when, halfway through, Harry turns it around on Draco, convincing Mr. Crabbe to recreate his 'thug voice' for the sake of his own amusement.* ThreePointLanding: [[spoiler: Neville Longbottom]] does a dramatic drop from a broomstick into the middle of the Taboo Tradeoffs battle. It's such a DynamicEntry that all the other fighters momentarily pause, stunned.* TickleTorture: Harry threatens Quirrell with this in chapter 19.* TimeForPlanB:-->'''Quirrell:''' In your future career, Mr. Zabini, I do not suggest trying any plots that complicated. They have [[GambitRoulette a tendency to fail]].\\'''Blaise:''' Um, I said that to the Headmaster, actually, and he said that was why it was important to have [[XanatosSpeedChess more than one plot going at a time]].* TitleDrop: In chapter 24.* ToBeLawfulOrGood: Harry repeatedly presses [=McGonagall=] on whether she will simply act the responsible authority figure even if it's ineffective or do whatever it takes to do good even if it's risky or unconventional. She leans towards the former.** In Chapter 88 this comes back to bite her when[[spoiler: her lawful reputation makes the other students too afraid to ignore her orders to stay put and help Harry save Hermione. Afterwards she decides her rule-biding attitude has crushed Griffindor's heroic spirit and attempts to resign as head of house.]]** The story in general seems to favour the latter position, emphasising doing whatever it takes and not just making a token effort and going through the standard motions. This is especially clear in the "Roles" arc.* TooSpicyForYogSothoth: [=McGonagall=] conjectures that Harry "triumphed over the Dark Lord by being more awful than he was, and survived the Killing Curse by being more terrible than Death."** A recent chapter has revealed that it is entirely possible that Yog Sothoth was sacrificed to summon Harry. [[DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu Consider that carefully...]]* TotalitarianUtilitarian: Harry as a "Dark Lord" would assuredly fall under this.* ToThePain: [=McGonagall=] threatens to "string [Harry] up by the gates of Hogwarts with [his] own intestines and pour fire beetles into [his] nose." (She ''probably'' doesn't really mean it....)* TranquilFury: Harry's "dark side" is very controlled and cold, even if it doesn't think too much about consequences.* TraumaCongaLine: Things have been getting worse and worse for Harry. He retains his optimism after [[spoiler: his harrowing visit to Azkaban]] but it's quickly followed by [[spoiler: losing Draco and almost losing Hermione in the trial, losing his chance to ever have a phoenix immediately afterwards and then, worst of all, seeing Hermione die in front of his eyes.]]* TreacherousAdvisor: Quirrell is the only one Harry looks up to as a rationalist, and this plays into Quirrell's hands. Hermione seems to be the only one who realizes how bad Quirrell is.* TrickedOutTime** Harry tries to use this in chapter 17 to factor a product of two prime numbers. [[spoiler:The result? "DO NOT MESS WITH TIME!"]]** Azkaban is subject to its own, immutable timeline. Dumbledore [[spoiler:stumbles on a paradox]] and consults with Snape later. They find it impossible to work out the problem without drawing diagrams. ** Later, when [[spoiler: Hermione dies]], Harry begs Dumbledore to simply travel back in time, [[spoiler: save Hermione]] and fake everything, so that time never actually changes. Dumbledore explains that that doesn't tend to work out well. * TricksterMentor: Dumbledore, although [[CloudCuckoolander who can tell for sure]]?* TrueLovesKiss: Mildly subverted.* TryAndFollow: In chapter 41, with the actual words "Follow if you dare."* {{Tuckerization}}: Eliezer offers small cameos as a thank-you to all FanArt artists of his fic. He also gives them shout-outs in his Author Notes, [[http://hpmor.com/notes/chapter-79/ e.g. in his notes on chapter 79]].* TurnCoat: Chapter 33 is full of these.* TurnOutLikeHisFather: Harry ''himself'' is afraid he'll turn into a bully like James.* TwinSwitch:** The [[spoiler:Patil twins in the pre-Christmas]] battle.** Susan Bones and [[spoiler: Tonks disguised as her when S.P.H.E.W. was spiraling out of control.]]* TheTysonZone: Defied, inverted played with, and deconstructed. ** Harry himself develops a reputation at Hogwarts for being able to do ''anything'' with his trademark finger snap, but that comes to bite him in the ass when [[spoiler:Lesath Lestrange, certain that he can do anything, ''went on his knees and begged Harry to release his mother Bellatrix Black from Azkaban'']]. He makes sure that The Daily Prophet releases absolutely ridiculous rumors about him, ''so that no one ever believes what the papers say about him anymore''. He [[spoiler:scares a Dementor in front of the Wizengamot]], and they take it in stride, because he's The Boy-Who-Lived and it fits story logic. Well, ''most'' of them do.** Draco Malfoy ''cannot'' do a good deed without everyone thinking he is plotting something nefarious. ** Dumbledore's ObfuscatingInsanity confuses people as to whether he's sane pretending to be insane, or insane pretending to be sane pretending to be insane. He may or may not have used Obfuscating Evil on the Death Eater faction to stop them from taking people's families hostage, but now they think Dumbledore isn't above stooping to any low. But people still have trouble believing that he's set fire to a chicken.** Defense Professors have had such a terrible record over the last decades that ''any'' accusation against them is plausible... which is why the teachers ''don't'' want to hear them, because they don't want to have to fire the professors mid-year; this is for the sake of their students' education.[[/folder]]

[[folder: U-Z]]* {{Uberwald}}: It is hinted that places like this exist in the magical world. Mad Eye Moody, in pursuit of the Eye of Vance, hunted down one Dark Lord who ruled a small fiefdom. That left a power vacuum until another Dark Lord moved in a couple weeks later.* UndisclosedFunds: In chapter 24, Harry asks Draco for a loan described only as "almost all the spending money Father had given Draco to last out the whole year". Probably not more than 40 galleons in any case.* TheUnfettered: In chapter 86, Harry tries--and fails--to explain to the adults that if Voldemort was as smart as Harry but evil, they would have all died in the first ''seconds'' of the war. Harry tries to think of a reason why someone like that might choose not to fight at full capacity, but is interrupted before he can think of anything.** Harry himself after [[spoiler: Hermione dies]]. Having previously considered the merits of trying to pursue a path where no-one dies and everyone is saved, Harry decides that from now on he will stop at nothing to [[spoiler: create a resurrection spell]], no matter what he has to do to achieve that.--->Harry would learn whatever he had to learn, invent whatever he had to invent, rip the knowledge of Salazar Slytherin from the Dark Lord's mind, discover the secret of Atlantis, open any gates or break any seals necessary, find his way to the root of all magic and reprogram it.\\He would rip apart the foundations of reality itself to [[spoiler: get Hermione Granger back]].** Lucius Malfoy threatens to become this if anything happens to Draco.* UnnecessarilyLargeInterior: The generals' offices seem this way to Draco and Harry, with Draco unable to think of any reason for their size other than to show off the generals' status, and Harry not even thinking of that. It doesn't occur to either of them that they might be meant to use that space to meet with their advisors, because it doesn't occur to them that they might want to ''have'' advisors. Hermione, understanding their psychology, had her officers' chairs removed for her meeting with Draco.* UnsoundEffect:-->"Honestly, I expected my body to be hitting the ground with a thud about now."\\There was a distinct body-hitting-the-ground-with-a-thuddish sort of sound.* UnspokenPlanGuarantee:** In the first wargame (ch. 30), we see Draco and Harry explaining their strategies to their armies, while we know nothing about what Hermione has planned. Guess who wins. It was a valiant try at a DoubleSubversion, but nobody was fooled.** Used again in the Taboo Tradeoffs battle in a virtual arms-race of this trope. Hermione's immediately revealed brute force strategy defeated by Harry's gambit which only emerges gradually over the course of the battle. [[spoiler: Both are then defeated by Draco, whose unspoken plan to counter Harry's gambit succeeds.]]* UnsportsmanlikeGloating: Hermione does this to Harry despite feeling that it's very naughty of her.* UnwittingPawn: Harry. [[spoiler:Quirrell likes to bounce "hypothetical" ideas off of him, and Harry volunteers information to him that he doesn't understand the significance of, like how to recognize one of the Deathly Hallows.]]* UpUpAndAway: Neville uses it for his Chaotic Leap in the first battle. Hermione uses it as Super-Hermione during the battle inside Hogwarts.* VerbalBackspace: When Quirrell insists that Harry's Occlumency tutor be [[LaserGuidedAmnesia Obliviated]] after each session, Dumbledore wonders why such expensive services are necessary, but...-->'''Harry:''' If it's money that's the problem, I have some ideas for making large amounts of money quickly--\\'''Dumbledore:''' Thank you Quirinus, your wisdom is now quite evident and I am sorry for disputing it.* VillainHasAPoint: Yudkowsky explains his use of this at length in [[http://yudkowsky.tumblr.com/writing/realistic-viewpoints this blog post]], and ultimately deconstructs the trope. He claims to have deliberately made the villains of HPMOR, and their perspectives, as believable and easy to understand as possible, not to [[DracoInLeatherPants cheerlead them]] but to demonstrate, in his opinion, how the psychology of evil actually works. Taking care to distinguish this trope from other, similar tropes like BothSidesHaveAPoint and GrayAndGreyMorality (the latter of which HPMOR is often pegged as), he points out that "self-justification is cheap," and that a villain who makes a strong argument [[WellIntentionedExtremist is not necessarily justified in what they do.]]-->"When I’m writing HPMOR’s Death Eaters, I’m trying to pass the Ideological Turing Test for Death Eaters—-when I write Draco Malfoy’s viewpoint, I’m writing about Death Eaters the way that Draco Malfoy would see them. The goal is that a real Death Eater would read my Draco Malfoy viewpoint and not say, “Aha! This was clearly written not by the real Draco Malfoy, but by someone who wanted to make Death Eaters look bad.” ... Professor Quirrell is being written with a goal of making sure that the real Professor Quirrell wouldn’t be able to point to one of his lines and say, “What? I wouldn’t say that. There are much more persuasive arguments for a nation that stands strong under a strong ruler, like—-“"* WalkingWasteland: Quirrell displays a touch of this while [[VillainsOutShopping Christmas shopping]].* WallBang** Harry gets an impression of the ''Sorting Hat'' doing this.** [=McGonagall=] does it later.** Harry does it himself after his first hour of magical research.* WeAllLiveInAmerica: An amazingly comprehensive selection of American idioms to come from the mouth of a child brought up in Oxford by academics; minor Americanisms have been corrected, however - originally Lupin spoke of "diapers"...** It is still evident that the author is American even from the very first chapter, "math" replacing "maths" and the term "college" used where a Brit would say "university" or "uni".** Although the story is set a decade before the 2005 revival, for Harry to NOT think of Doctor Who when learning of Time Turners seems a conspicuous omission.** Britpicking is currently in progress to rewrite the story in British English.* WeirdnessMagnet:** Tracey seems to think Harry Potter is ''literally'' this, to the point where she suggests stunning him, tying him up and dragging him around with them to attract Adventure.--->It said something, Hermione Granger thought, and it was something rather sad -- as the eight of them strolled back through the [[ColossalCave maze of twisty little passages]] that was Hogwarts, their time before the next class having run out without finding any bullies -- that she genuinely didn't know whether Harry Potter had been led around by the ghost of Salazar Slytherin or a phoenix or what. And whatever Harry had done, she hoped it didn't work for them. And most of all she hoped that the others didn't vote for Tracey's idea of stunning Harry Potter and carting his unconscious body around with them to attract Adventures. That couldn't possibly work in real life, or, if it did, she was giving up.** [=McGonagall=] calls Harry a "weirdness magnet" in Chapter 17.* WhamEpisode: Chapter 89. [[spoiler:Hermione's death.]]* WhamLine: In Chapter 51, when Quirrell tells Harry that there is an innocent person in Azkaban, Harry correctly deduces that it is "a person named Black." Quirrell is surprised and tells Harry he is correct, then asks, [[spoiler:"How did you know I meant Bellatrix?"]]** Also somewhat parodied earlier on.--->Draco sat down, as he was having trouble standing. You got this feeling about once a month around Harry Potter, and it hadn't happened yet in January, so this was due.** Chapter 78, to the surprise of everyone (including [[spoiler:Harry himself)]]:---> [[spoiler:"Hermione Granger," Auror Komodo said in a toneless voice, "you are under arrest for the attempted murder of Draco Malfoy."]]** Chapter 84, [[spoiler:Quirrel]] and Hermione talking about heroics:---> "So -" Hermione's voice sounded strange in the night. "You left your friends behind where they'd be safe, and tried to attack the Dark Wizard all by yourself?"\\"Why, no," [[spoiler:said Professor Quirrell.]] "I stopped trying to be a hero, and went off to do something else I found more pleasant."** In Chapter 89, directly after [[spoiler:Hermione dies and Harry vows to bring her back by any means necessary,]] we finally hear the full (and updated to fit the circumstances) version of Trelawney's cut-off prophecy:---> '''Trelawney:''' [[spoiler:'''''HE IS HERE. THE ONE WHO WILL TEAR APART THE VERY STARS IN HEAVEN. HE IS HERE. HE IS THE END OF THE WORLD.''''']]** The end of Chapter 104:--> '''Harry:''' [[spoiler:Hello, Lord Voldemort.]]--> '''Quirrel:'''[[spoiler:Hello, Tom Riddle.]]* WhatMeasureIsANonHuman: "Snakes are sentient!?"* WhatTheHellHero: Frequent, though the Sorting Hat's was probably the most memorable, borrowing Harry's own intelligence and using it to refute the boy's own plans and arguments.* [[WhoNamesTheirKidDude Who Names Their Kid "Dud(l)e(y)"?]]: The reason Petunia didn't marry Vernon Dursley in this version of the story: she had this reaction when he told her what he was planning to name his firstborn.* WhosLaughingNow:-->'''Tracey Davis:''' We'll show him! We'll show them all!\\'''Daphne Greengrass:''' Okay, now ''that'' was definitely Evil.\\'''Padma Patil:''' No, that's one of the Chaos mottoes, though she didn't do [[EvilLaugh the laugh]].* WickedStepmother: Dumbledore appears to have thought Harry [[WrongGenreSavvy ought to have]] wicked stepparents, and seems disappointed to hear that they aren't even a little bit wicked. Though they don't take him seriously, and that frustrates Harry to no end.* WildCard: [[spoiler:Blaise Zabini]]. Given the [[GambitPileup nature]] of the War of Three Armies, the fact that he manages to distinguish himself as this is truly impressive.* WillNotTellALie:** When Harry is asked to lie outright rather than use his usual techniques of misdirection and half-truth, he has to be told that the need is desperate before agreeing.** Dumbledore as well, to the point that when the Weasley twins tell him the only way to activate the Marauder's Map is by saying "I solemnly swear I am up to no good," he refuses to say it, but then makes the map work for him anyway.* WiseBeyondTheirYears: Harry, the eleven-year-old boy currently working on a reliable means of mass-producing carbon nanotubes, Draco, the twelve-year-old EvilChancellor, and Hermione, the girl who [[spoiler:beat both of them at magic paintball]] by the end of Chapter 30.* WithFriendsLikeThese: Draco realizes (a little too late) that having Harry for a friend is at least as dangerous as having him for an enemy:-->If you were Harry's enemy, his plots might be hard to see through at first, they might even be stupid, but his reasoning would make ''sense'' once you understood it, you would comprehend that he was trying to hurt you.\\The way Harry was acting toward Draco right now did not make sense.\\Because if you were Harry's ''friend'', then he tried to be friends with you in the alien, incomprehensible way he'd been raised by Muggles to do, even if it meant destroying your entire life.* AWizardDidIt: Defied continually and with extreme prejudice, since one of Harry's goals is to completely eliminate this trope and discover the rules for ''all magic.'' ** Once Harry gets his mokeskin bag, he's frustrated at its inconsistency with object's names when summoning; when he asks [=McGonagall=] why it works that way, her reply of "Magic" does ''not'' satisfy him.*** Harry uses the simple "Magic" answer when speaking to his father... who uses Harry's same response of "That's not an answer!"* WordsCanBreakMyBones: If Dumbledore is to be believed, there do exist Words of Power and Madness that are dangerous to utter -- it's just that no one these days knows what those words are.--> "Happy happy boom boom swamp swamp swamp. Thank you."* TheWorldIsNotReady: Harry decides that he and other wizarding scientists -- unlike Muggle scientists -- should keep their discoveries secret until they're sure humanity won't misuse them. Although he suspects muggle scientists might have started doing this after what happened when politicians got access to nuclear weapons.* WorldOfSnark: Many of the student characters get this along with their intelligence upgrade, and many of the adults are similarly snarky. The whimsical magical world produces a large number of [[OnlySaneMan Only Sane Men and Women]].* WouldntHitAGirl: The bullies are cast in a negative light through continual reminder that their opponents are first-year girls.** Generally averted during battles, as students target girls as much as boys. One exception is when Neville kicks Hannah in the stomach and immediately feels remorse.* WrongGenreSavvy** As of chapter 21, it's pretty clear that Dumbledore believes they are in an epic fantasy (unless that's just part of his ObfuscatingInsanity), Harry is seeing it as science fiction or a computer RPG, and Hermione apparently thinks it's a romantic comedy. ''Somebody'' is mistaken about the genre they're in, but it's not quite clear ''who'' at this point.** Draco seems to be convinced that he is Light from ''Manga/DeathNote'', which is ''definitely'' wrong. His father takes some of the wind out of his sails in chapter 97. ---> '''Lucius''': My son, truly, you have done well this day. However, this is not a play, we are not Aurors, and we do not put our trust in trials.** It seems the girls of Slytherin House are enjoying a trashy romance novel, starring Harry Potter, Hermione Granger and Draco Malfoy as the competing love interests.** One of the Lovegoods thinks it's a more... "exotic" romance novel.* XanatosGambit:** [[DiscussedTrope Described]] in Chapter 24 with Draco thinking about Harry's plans and those of stories he was told by his father. Not just a story - a story about a clever hero who always tricks a band of gargoyles into furthering his plans. [[ShoutOut Does]] [[WesternAnimation/{{Gargoyles}} that]] [[PerspectiveFlip sound familiar]] [[TropeNamer to you]]?** The basic premise of the Xanatos Gambit was described earlier, in Chapter 22, though the wording was slightly altered as a joke.---> [[spoiler:[[Literature/VorkosiganSaga The key to strategy is not to choose a path to J. K. Rowling, but to choose so that all paths lead to a J. K. Rowling]].]]* XanatosSpeedChess: During the Stanford Prison Experiment in particular, but predicted much earlier:-->And it was also clear that Potter was brilliant, and a whole lot more than just slightly mad, and playing a vast game that Potter himself mostly didn't understand, improvised at top speed with the subtlety of a rampaging nundu. * XMeetsY: ''Literature/HarryPotter'' meets rationalism.* YaoiFangirl: Apparently, most girls in the wizarding world.* YouAllMeetInAnInn: Harry meets Hermione, Neville, and Ron on the Hogwarts Express / Platform 9 3/4. In particular, [=McGonagall=] tells Harry to be on the look out for Hermione on the train, and Harry wonders whether she is a PC or NPC. Harry also has his first real conversation with Draco on the platform. Justified because on the train will be the first time most Hogwarts students meet each other.* [[YouAndWhatArmy You And What Other Army]]: This is what Harry says to Hermione in chapter 67 when he and Neville confront her and the entire Sunshine Regiment while the rest of the Chaos Legion deals with the Dragon Army.* YouAreNotReady: Invoked on several occasions, most notably when [[spoiler: Harry refuses to explain his Patronus 2.0.]]** Harry doles out information about science to Draco very carefully, and uses this exact explanation. Draco is surprisingly okay with this, because his father taught him to take those words seriously. In fact, he becomes quite upset when Harry assumes Draco is rather more ready than he actually was.** Harry wants to access his Gringotts vault in order to go Christmas shopping, diversify his assets, and buy items he thinks he might have a use for later. Dumbledore says that he isn't ready, and Harry is less than cooperative. See IllPretendIDidntHearThat.* YouDontWantToKnow: During the jailbreak scene: "You don't want to see who's behind me. Trust me, you don't."* YouFool: Specifically, Quirrell calls Harry "fool boy" twice in Chapter 58 when the plan goes pear-shaped.* YouGoGirl: Hermione leads an army and the S.P.H.E.W. girls fight bullies to show they can keep up with Harry Potter. However, people still view Hermione as being Harry's rival rather than a protagonist in her own right.* YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness** After learning Slytherin's secrets from [[spoiler:the Basilisk]], Voldemort didn't want to leave it around for anyone else to learn from. At least, that's what Quirrell assumes. [[spoiler: But he's only pretending to guess. Either Quirrell [[IHaveThisFriend is referring to his own actions]] or is lying to dissuade Harry from attempting to find it.]]** Also, Madam Bones assumes this is what happened to whoever helped [[spoiler: Bellatrix]] escape.* YouJustToldMe:** [=McGonagall=] uses this on Hermione and then smilingly warns her not to fall for it again: "Miss Granger, you aren't supposed to ''admit'' anything just because I say I know."** [[DiscussedTrope Discussed]] in Chapter 18, when Harry says that he should have tried this on Dumbledore, [=McGonagall=], or Snape to try to get more details about Voldemort out of them. There's also a more subtle example earlier in that same chapter: Harry gives Dumbledore the excuse for keeping Snape around that Dumbledore then repeats back to him - that Hogwarts needs an evil Potions Master in order to be a proper magical school.** Invoked in chapter 79. "You're not [[spoiler:Quirinus Quirrell.]] Who the HELL are you?"* YouKilledMyFather** Draco is determined that [[spoiler:Dumbledore]] will pay for his mother's death.** And [[BewareTheNiceOnes Neville]] wants revenge on Bellatrix.* YouRemindMeOfX: Snape thinks this, although not quite in the way that Harry imagines.[[/folder]]